


Flotsam and Jetsam

by Reynier



Category: Arthurian Literature - Fandom, Arthurian Mythology
Genre: AU where gawain kills lot i guess??, And then a pirate au? twice? but different ones?, Canonical Character Death, F/F, M/M, sometimes you write different pirate aus........ to be gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 23,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24600904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reynier/pseuds/Reynier
Summary: Various shorter Arthurian oneshots, mainly weird AUs and stuff.
Relationships: Dinadan & Lancelot, Gawain & Yvain, Gawain/Lancelot du Lac (Arthurian), Guinevere/Morgan le Fay, Kay/Chretien de Troyes as a complete joke i promise its not serious rpf its a joak, Yvain & Aggravaine
Comments: 116
Kudos: 37
Collections: Arthurian_Server_Squad





	1. Posh, flash, lo so che piace pesh

**Author's Note:**

> All chapter titles will be horrible horrible Myss Keta lyrics.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lou wanted an au where gawain kills lot, my friend clem (hey babe) wanted more of the special rey brand evil lancelot, voila

People said things about Sir Gawain of Orkney and Lothian. Mainly they said “good morning,” or “thank you,” or “I hope you have a nice day,” because those were the things you said to someone whose back could be maligned but whose face could not. But, when he was most decidedly not stalking the halls of Camelot, they said other things. The word _kinslayer_ got bandied about quite a bit, sometimes coupled with _kingslayer_ , which wasn’t any better. 

The fact that Arthur had knighted him despite committing patricide and regicide at the same time was a point of contention for the more cautious members of the court. “He wasn’t good enough for the kingship,” Sir Bedivere said once, where no one could hear him but Kay the seneschal, “so why is he good enough for knighthood?”

Kay didn’t know. No one knew exactly what under-the-table dealings had gone on after Lot’s eldest son had shown up in the military tent with a burlap sack and a promise of allegiance, but Arthur had left as liege-lord of the Orkneys and Lothian, Gawain had left as Sir Gawain, and his younger brother Aggravaine had left as the king in the north. 

When Lancelot arrived on the scene, fresh from the rumorless, ignorant waterways of Occitania, no one had given him a guide book to Camelot’s byzantine internal politics. No one had taken him aside and pointed out the woman to King Arthur’s right who wore her royal circlet like a crown of thorns, and certainly no one had explained what it meant that, when left to her own devices, she sat to the side with the man in the green doublet. 

But he figured it out quick enough on his own-- that was the thing no one realised about him. He had been at Camelot for several months, watching and learning, before he did anything that inspired people to learn his name. So he saw clearly the way that people walked, how they parted around the queen and her friend like water around a sharp rock in the river. And, in the neatly-kept pages of his mind, he took notes. 

* People were very polite to the both of them. King Arthur never went against his queen, never questioned her decrees, and for all she sat at his left hand she controlled the right as well. 
  

* Sir Gawain-- for that was the name of the strange man whom no one looked in the eyes-- was the king’s eldest nephew, but not his heir. He was the commander of a host of brothers and several cousins, some of whom were kings in their own right. It had been something of a shock to Lancelot when he had discovered that Sir Aggravaine, the king of the Orkneys and Lothian, was not in fact Sir Gawain’s elder brother but his younger. Why this was the case was not something anyone wanted to discuss, but Lancelot was patient. 
  

* The only people who held their ground against Queen Guinevere were the seneschal Sir Kay and the war marshal Sir Bedivere. The two of them, often seen in each other’s company, presented an inseparable front when addressing the duo Lancelot was rapidly coming to think of as Camelot’s sharks in the water, primed for blood. What exactly it was that had split the four of them into rival camps, Lancelot did not yet know, but he could only imagine it had something to do with the nervous way people watched Sir Gawain’s hands anytime they drifted near his sword hilt. 
  

* Sir Gawain was never sent on quests, but he did disappear on occasion. 
  

* He had once overheard the most curious conversation between a pair of kitchen maids. They hadn’t noticed him. People didn’t tend to notice him, not if he wanted to be quiet. Over the sound of washing dishes, one of their voices had faded into audibility: “...and you know,” she was saying, “Sir Gawain would have been a king by now if he hadn’t tried to take it too early. That’s what comes of going against the order of things.” More water bubbled. Then the other spoke. “That’s not what I heard. I heard he killed his father to protect his mother. Look what came of it, though. She’s exiled, isn’t she?” Well, she wasn’t at Camelot, that was for certain. 

The queen had been kidnapped, which was not, on the whole, particularly good for the kingdom. She should have had a horde of rescuers. King Arthur should have ridden out on principle alone to retrieve her, or Sir Kay. Neither of them did. Instead, Sir Kay turned to Sir Gawain with a raised eyebrow, an unasked question hovering on his lips. 

Sir Gawain took a sip of wine. “She’ll be fine.”

Everyone waited. 

“Well,” he followed up eventually, placing his empty chalice on the table in front of him, “I’ll take care of the mess.” And he left. 

No one noticed as Lancelot saddled his horse and rode after him. It was raining outside, the wind whipping through the trees and tossing branches to the ground in his wake. Tracking Sir Gawain was more difficult than he expected it to be, but not impossible. Fording the river was also not impossible. What _was_ impossible was the way that Gringolet’s hoofprints faded into nothing once Camelot had disappeared from view. 

Unsettled, Lancelot stopped. He was not a man prone to fear. Horses were also not prone to disappearing into thin air, so he accorded himself some leeway in this situation. It was raining, but not enough to wash away tracks. He spun around.

“You’re that man from Occitania, aren’t you?” said Sir Gawain curiously. He was seated on his horse as though nothing was unusual in the situation. “Sir Lancelot?”

This was insulting to his stealth, but flattering to his person. There was no point in dissembling. “Yes. I thought you might want backup.”

“I don’t, but that’s very nice of you.” His horse pawed at the dirt, leaving no indent. It was hard to leave an indent when you were standing several inches above the ground. “I’ll take companionship, though. Why are you so partial to the queen?”

“Um,” said Lancelot, who was not quick at thinking on his feet and thought _picking your allies_ seemed somewhat impolitic, or rather, too politic entirely. “She seems nice.”

There was laughter at this. “Well, we can all seem. Ride with me? I’ll make it worth your while.”

In the rain, Sir Gawain’s eyes glinted with more warmth than the pale sky. Lancelot didn’t know what to make of a comment like that, and opted for conservative. “I don’t want money.”

“Well, that’s fortunate, I don’t have any. Unless I steal it from my brother, which wouldn’t be very brotherly.” He paused. “You’re staring.”

“Your horse is flying,” said Lancelot politely. 

“Oh,” Gawain said, glancing down as though he had only just realised this, “he does that. Never break a taboo, Sir Lancelot. Killing a father, killing a king-- I don’t know how things are in France, but in the North curses are very much real. Kinslayers are less than human, they say. Well, they’re right. Nothing useful. But sometimes my horse floats. You know how it is.”

“I do,” said Lancelot, who had been raised underwater and had a magic ring. “Shouldn’t we be hurrying to save the queen?”

Thunder rumbled. “Hurrying to save Meleagant might be more accurate. Are you sparing of life, Sir Lancelot?”

“Whose?”

“Oh, that’s an answer. But you’re right, if we’re to make progress before dark we should leave. I am sure this will be quite the adventure. I cannot wait to make your acquaintance.”

And, with the rain hissing down like fire and night closing upon them, they rode. 


	2. Una donna che UNO, DUE-- una donna che CONTA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mmmmmmmm gay pirates for me and evelyn

Guinevere was ostensibly not a criminal. That is, because she was the wife of a very legal man, she nominally followed the law, and probably didn’t do anything immoral, and plausibly wasn’t a liar. This was what people assumed, at least. 

People were mostly very stupid. People also tended to fall for a pretty face. Guinevere was very pretty. 

“I mean, I’m not going to kill you,” said Morgan, her feet propped on the table in front of her. “That would be very mean. Do I look like a mean person to you, Lady Pendragon?” 

A pair of sharp green eyes gave her a once over that she felt in her bones. “I wouldn’t say that.”

Unexpected. “Oh, well, that’s very kind of you.” Leaning forward, she examined the woman more closely. Meticulously made dress, perfectly outlined red lips, a hint of a smile. A magistrate’s wife, that was it, wasn’t it? They needed politics in the city. They needed whatever Guinevere Pendragon was. A flatterer, and a fool. “Kind, but wrong. I’m not very nice at all, you’ll be interested to discover.”

“I am interested,” said Lady Pendragon, and that odd little smile still hadn’t left her lips. “But if you’re not going to kill me, then what are you going to do with me? Don’t pirates kill their prey?”

“Prey?” Morgan swung her legs off the desk and pushed herself to standing. “Rather animalistic phrasing. I’m a pirate, not some sort of wild boar.”

Lady Pendragon paused slightly. “I was not implying that you were a wild boar, Captain. Forgive me for not knowing the appropriate terminology, I’m ever so sorry.”

“That’s--” Morgan paused in her circuitous route of the cabin and reevaluated the sentence. The woman was mocking her. What a _bastard._ “What on Earth am I supposed to do with you, Lady Pendragon?” 

It was an honest question. Despite everything in the balance of power, despite the fact that Morgan had a sword on one hip and a pistol on the other and a floating oaken death trap as her kingdom, the woman sitting politely at her desk in her muted rococo dress was slightly frightening. Morgan liked frightening things, and although assumptions could not be made in that regard, it was worth preserving an elegant china teapot even if you couldn’t drink from it. 

She didn’t answer immediately, just leaned back slightly in her chair and gazed out the porthole window, facing away from Morgan. “You killed my husband, didn’t you?”

Morgan stopped her slow pacing. The woman’s tone was even, unconcerned, but it could have been an act. In truth the Honourable Arthur Pendragon was in chains in the brig, but you had to find your amusement somewhere. It was an interesting experiment. “Yes.”

“Ah.” Lady Pendragon layed one perfectly manicured hand on the table in front of her and tapped her nails on the wood. “Was it enjoyable?”

This was unprecedented. It was not as though she had a wide pool of conversations with widows on which to draw, but when they occurred they generally didn’t follow such lines. There was more crying, for one thing. Morgan tried to be nice. She really did. This woman did not seem _nice_ beyond superficialities, and that was in many respects a very admirable thing, in that Morgan felt very admiring of her. “It was just a gunshot,” she said, opting for neutrality. “There’s not much to enjoy in a gunshot. Did he deserve it, my Lady?”

“Would you sit down again, Captain?”

The sheer audacity of the request was enough to make Morgan smile. It was as though they were in a drawing room in London instead of the galley of a pirate ship. So against all her piratical instincts, she obliged. They sat on either side of the polished table facing one another. “Did you want your husband dead, Lady Pendragon? That’s an interesting development.”

“It’s not that I wanted him dead,” she said carefully, glancing at the papers scattered on the desk, “but that if he tragically died at sea and I was press-ganged into an evil troop of pirates, I wouldn’t exactly say no.”

Morgan blinked. “What?”

Lady Pendragon’s startling green eyes flicked up and caught hers. “Do you need a _politique?_ I can be very political indeed.”

There was no use debating the matter. Any dangerous person who so clearly offered their services would be a valued addition to Morgan’s little operation. Especially one with such an evidently skewed sense of morality. And a frightening smile. “Well,” she said, “if that’s what you’re offering, then that’s that. Welcome to the crew. I’m Captain Morgan.”

“Just like that?” For the first time since entering her cabin a prisoner, Lady Pendragon looked somewhat surprised. 

“Just,” said Morgan, giving her a wide smile, “like that. Do you know how to fire a gun?”

Something flashed in her eyes. “No. Perhaps you can teach me.”

There were several ways that could be interpreted. Unfortunately, given the current circumstances, there was also one matter which had to be cleared up. “By the way,” Morgan said, rather regretfully, “I lied. Your husband is alive and well enough in the brig.”

“Oh.” Lady Pendragon frowned minutely. “That restricts me somewhat. Captain, do you kiss and tell?”

...but _that_ , well, there was really only one way that could be interpreted. Feelings slightly ashamed at having been so seen through, Morgan chuckled. “Am I that obvious?”

“You’ve got a nice blush,” said Lady Pendragon, and grinned. It was her first real smile, wide and sharp. “I’ve heard of exotic ways of welcoming a new pirate into the crew. You haven’t even shaken my hand. We could start there.” And she held out one long-fingered hand across the table. 

Morgan took it, business-like, and shook it, business-like, and then kept holding onto it for a time that implied some interesting things about the nature of business. She had the sensation of standing at the very edge of a cliff, debating whether or not to jump. It was ridiculous-- she was one of the Atlantic’s most feared pirates, and here she was, filled with feverish vertigo by the cut-edge look of a magistrate’s wife. 

“Are you busy right now, Captain?” said Lady Pendragon, who also hadn’t withdrawn her hand. 

The cliff was looking very promising. “I don’t have to be,” she managed. 

Lady Pendragon pulled back all of a sudden, but before Morgan had the time to be disappointed she stood from her chair and made her way around the table. Morgan rose to meet her. 

“So,” said Lady Pendragon, somewhat breathlessly, “a kiss for the occasion?”

Morgan obliged, slipping one hand onto her waist and the other up her corseted back. She felt the carefully painted lipstick coming off slightly, but there were far more pressing concerns at the moment, namely the fact that Lady Pendragon was kissing her back, teeth catching on her bottom lip, not quite hard enough to draw blood but certainly hard enough to smart. Morgan made a sound which she recognized was not very dignified, and then leant into the hand which had found itself caught in the fabric of her loose cotton shirt. There were hypothetically other things she should be concerning herself with in the aftermath of a conquered ship, but they all seemed very far away at the moment. 

Lady Pendragon took a step forward, pressing herself close and her hands closer, and Morgan took the opportunity to shrug out of her long dusty overcoat. It was not practical in the present situation. What was practical was the way that the Honourable Arthur Pendragon’s wife was currently toying with the laces on her shirt collar. The fact that she seemed intent on backing Morgan into a wall was also very practical, and so Morgan aided the situation by breaking the kiss long enough to shuffle blindly behind until her back was pressing firmly into the hard wood of the cabin wall and Lady Pendragon was pressing just as firmly on her front. 

“I suppose you’re not busy either, my Lady?” she managed to say in between quick kisses. 

"I may be now." Then she smiled. "And call me Guinevere." 


	3. sono introppolata nella casa degli specchi??!!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> gay pirates for lou and eddie

“Pirates” was what the missive had said, and it was pirates for which Lancelot had prepared himself. He knew what a pirate was. A pirate lurked in shallow waters and preyed on weak vessels-- not on the strong frigates partial to the French navy. Not on Lancelot’s beloved _May Queen_. A pirate was a scarred, behatted man, hardly worthy of hatred. 

A pirate definitely didn’t offer him a hand up after knocking him flat on the deck and pressing a blade to his throat. 

Cautiously, he accepted the hand. The pirate-- for such he was, as evidenced by his feathered hat and the scars on his face and the mouth Lancelot definitely didn’t want to hate-- grinned at him nonchalantly. Around them the sounds of battle raged on, smoky and violent. A musket fired so near the pirate’s head that it blew his wavy hair forward of her eyes. “Accepting help from a lawless killer?” he said. “Not very maritime of you.”

“I mean--” Lancelot started, and then stopped himself. It would not do to antagonise the man. “Well, it would have been impolite to refuse.”

“Impolite and impolitic,” said the pirate. He seemed entirely unconcerned with the bloodshed around him. “Are you the captain?”

There seemed little point in dissembling. “Yes. Captain Lancelot du Lac of the _May Queen_.” Entirely independent of his brain, his mouth kept moving. “Good beating you’ve given us, I must say. You had me at your mercy, there. Why did you stop?”

“To the compliment, I say, thank you.” The man gave a mock-bow. “We do love our jobs. As for the matter of your life, well-- I offer that deal to every sorry navyman whose deck I besmirch with my steps. But that doesn’t mean they take it.”

Beside them, Lancelot’s quartermaster stumbled back off the deck and splashed into the water below, trailing red. “What?”

“It is very discourteous,” said the strange pirate, wiping his dagger dry on his gambeson, “to continue a fight when one party is unarmed. Don’t you think?”

Lancelot did think. Lancelot did think very much. For instance, he thought the man had a nice smile. “Mmm, yes.”

The pirate eyed him thoughtfully. “You look bored. Are you bored?”

“Am I-- what?”

The carnage was slowing, all of Lancelot’s men either dead or subdued. Suddenly he found he did not care particularly, and the pirate seemed to read it on his face. “Want to give it a shot on the other side?”

“Will there be fighting?” said his damnable mouth, speaking again out of turn. 

“Fighting,” said the pirate, “and other things.”

And that was how Lancelot du Lac turned coat. 


	4. Giri e ti rigiri e non sai più cosa respiri

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> my first ever arthurian fic lol with some OLD characterisations. you can see theyre old characterisations because gawain is described as tall, so i clearly hadnt yet seen the light of god. i also hadnt read the morte yet and it shows so much. gawain is so nice.

The festival was for rejoicing, and Yvain did the best he could. He swung Lunete around in a contredanse, and kissed Laudine under the mistletoe, and played at quoits with Gawain. When the sun finally sank, he went to Vespers with the rest of the court and sat in prayer between his wife and his cousin. Then, because Gawain was his closest friend besides Lunete, and he knew when something was wrong with his cousin, Yvain pulled him aside and invited him back to his rooms for a drink. 

“That might not be a good idea,” said Gawain, shiftily, and ran a hand through his wild curls. He wasn’t making eye contact. “Ragnelle and I leave early tomorrow.”

Yvain placed a hand on Gawain’s shoulder and steered him gently down the hallway regardless of his protests. “How is she?”

“Good! Good.” He shook off the hand. “These kind of festivities don’t agree with her.”

“Yes, she’s not particularly sociable, is she?” said Yvain quietly. He liked Ragnelle: the two of them were kindred souls in many respects, their attitude towards large crowds included. “Honestly, I never would have expected the two of you to get along as well as you do.”

“What do you mean by that?” said Gawain, although he seemed more curious than offended. It also appeared he had succumbed to the idea of a drink, and was now valiantly leading the way to Yvain’s rooms. 

“Well, she’s very reclusive. And you’re… not.”

“I’m plenty reclusive. Just not with you. Ah, pass me the key?”

They had arrived. Yvain chucked his keyring over, and Gawain pushed the door open and strode in with his usual confidence. “Do you have any sweet wine? I need something sweet.”

“Cupboard above the bed.”

“Blackberry. Perfect-- you don’t mind?”

“No, no, help yourself.” Yvain sank down into the old wooden chair by his desk and leaned back. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m terrific,” said Gawain, and tossed his head back to glug half the bottle of blackberry wine in one foul swoop. Eventually he paused for breath, running a hand across his mouth. “Even better now that I’ve got some of that in me, of course.”

“Hold on, now, I think-- I think you should slow down, Gawain.”

Gawain waved a hand, and cast about for something to stop up the top of the bottle. “Don’t worry, I’m done. I was thirsty, more than anything. Empty masses dry me out.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It means none of those twats cares an ounce about Jesu or Mary or any of the lot.”

Yvain frowned at the tall, wavy-haired, tipsy mess that was his cousin. “And you do?”

“Of course I do. I care more than most. You can question anything about me you like, but don’t question my faith.”

“I-- no, I wouldn’t. No one would.” Yvain sighed. That was the problem with Gawain, anyway. There was nothing one could truly criticize him for. “No one would question anything about you at all.”

“Nonsense, Yvain,” he said brusquely, and found a piece of canvas to shove into the wine bottle. “I’m hardly a model knight.”

“You’re hardly a-- that’s ridiculous, you’re the perfect knight.” Yvain found that he had raised his voice, and made a conscious effort to lower it again. “Don’t you know that?”

Now it was Gawain’s turn to frown. “I know I’m the one you’re concerned about,” he said, “but is there something wrong?”

There wasn’t. “No, no. I’m fine. I’m sorry for getting worked up.”

“Right.” 

“Pass the wine?” said Yvain, hopelessly. 

“I’ll give you the wine if you tell me what’s wrong.”

Shame curdled in his throat. “It’s ridiculous, frankly. I know it’s ridiculous. Just give me the wine.”

“Shan’t,” said Gawain, and held it out of reach as Yvain lunged forward to try and snag it from his hands. “And you’re too short to reach it, so fess up.”

“You’re a bastard,” said Yvain, and slumped back into his chair. 

“Not as far as I know, but it would explain some things. Come on, I said something wrong. What was it?”

“It’s not your fault,” said Yvain reluctantly. “Sometimes, it’s… you know, you’re a very difficult cousin to have.”

“I am?”

“I don’t mean this maliciously, of course. I love you very much.” Yvain looked up, and shrugged his shoulders. “But no matter how good I am, I’m never going to be as good as Sir Gawain, everyone’s favourite knight, honourable and brave and-- and popular.”

Sighing, Gawain placed the wine bottle down on the table, and made his way over to where Yvain sat. “It’s been aptly proven, I think, that you and I are perfect equals on the battlefield.”

“Oh, yes,” said Yvain, bitterly. “But do you know what happens any time I answer a plea for a knight? It’s always _thank you very much for coming, we would have preferred Gawain, but his cousin will do._ It gets a bit disheartening after a while, how perfect you are.”

Gawain was silent for a moment, and sat down on the cold stone floor beside Yvain’s chair. “I’m not perfect,” he said. “I’m very far from perfect indeed.”

“Have you ever forgotten you were engaged?”

“I haven’t, but--”

“Have you ever adopted a feral lion?”

“I’m not sure calling him feral is the nicest--”

“Have you ever run off to the woods for a year and lived as a naked hermit?”

Gawain paused. “I understand your point,” he said carefully, “but you are a better man than I by far, even if you don’t know it. There are many things you don’t know about me.”

“What things?”

“Are you occupied this week?” said Gawain, abruptly, staring off into the middle distance. “You should come with me and Ragnelle.”

“What in the Heavens are you-- occupied? I’m not, as it happens. Where are you going?”

“Oh,” said Gawain, rubbing the back of his neck. “Away. Up north. Ragnelle and I go every year to visit friends, and before we married I went by myself. You may as well come. It will break whatever pleasant illusions you have about me quite neatly.”

For all his irritations, Yvain was not sure that he liked the sound of this. “It’s-- you’re not going to do something terrible, are you?”

“Depends on your definition of terrible, I suppose.”

Yvain chuckled, and it felt hollow. “You’re starting to scare me a little.”

“Oh, no, you needn’t be scared. I just think some perspective will do you good.” He grimaced. “But please, don’t bring Laudine. She doesn’t like me much as it is.”

“She thinks you’re a rake,” input Yvain helpfully. This was more familiar territory.

Gawain grinned, and rolled his head back. “I am a rake,” he said. “I’m just a very discrete rake, so I know you don’t believe me. You should listen to Laudine more.”

“Laudine dislikes you because you dragged me away from her,” pointed out Yvain. “I take everything she says about you with a grain of salt.”

“Hmm. Well, hopefully this trip will disabuse you of all generous ideas you have of me. Be ready before dawn. Ragnelle and I will come find you.”

“I will.” Yvain sighed. The entire affair was exceedingly odd, but he couldn’t find it in himself to protest. “Who are we visiting?”

“Oh,” said Gawain, pushing himself to standing, “just a couple of model Christians. You’ll love them-- and besides, they do know how to ring in the new year.”


	5. Si, io non sono una santa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Arthurian bingo trope "random maidens with weird challenges."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for typos i wrote this in 30 minutes so that lou could read it before going to his well deserved rest (historians of the future-- lou g gringolet is NOT DEAD. i repeat NOT DEAD.)

It was at Pentecost, as so many things were. Sacred days drew the penitents out from the woodwork, pleading their case and their confessions before a king who wasn’t holy enough to save the Wasteland. And, like the God he failed, Arthur delegated the burden of his sins. 

“I demand the fulfillment of justice,” said the maiden standing at the center of the hall. Her brown ringlets were twisted into thick buns at the top of her head in the latest fashion and her dress shone of Navarrese samite. “Is there any here who will carry out my challenge?”

The Queen, who was having a bad day, raised one objectionably manicured eyebrow. “What challenge is this?”

“My lands are flooded.” She bit her lip, looked mildly embarrassed, and then forged on. “I was told several months ago, when I came into this land, that if I did not maintain the chapel at the edge of my grounds, great harm would come to me. Well, you may blame me-- I didn’t maintain it. It was, quite frankly, very creepy. Something lives there now. But my fields are devasted and my people are starving. I ask you to send a knight who will destroy either the cursed chapel or the thing that lives in it.”

Courtiers shifted nervously. Up on the dais, the King leaned back in his throne, frowning. “And what do you think lives there?”

“I don’t know. I don’t go there. It looks like a man, from the glimpses I’ve caught at night-- a man dressed all in black. But I’ve sent knights to deal with it and none of them came back.” She paused and glanced around the court with its granite-faced onlookers. None of them moved a muscle. “Well? Will no one take up this challenge? Not even the brave Sir Lancelot of whom I’ve heard so much?”

“Sir Lancelot is not at court presently,” said Queen Guinevere, her voice pleasant. “And I do not think he will avail you in this particular situation. Might I suggest a less thrilling alternative?”

There was some scattered muttering from around the room. This did not bode well for anyone present. Gracefully, the maiden nodded. “I would be honoured.”

“Sir Dinadan will do the job,” said the queen, a smile bubbling over her lips. She cast a glance to the seat on the right side of King Arthur and the man in green who sat there. The two of them exchanged an obscure look. “Yes, I think Sir Dinadan would suit you well. He so often deems us unsuitable, at any rate. Where is he?”

A quick round of searching produced no Sir Dinadan, which did not surprise the queen or her compatriot in silent conversation at all. “Not present,” said the latter, his chin resting on his hand. “Choose a better knight. I couldn’t help?”

“No!” The Queen shot the petitioning maiden a friendly smile. “Sir Dinadan is eminently correct. You should accept no other aid. He will find you, I’m sure, once the news finds him. Have a good day.”

He found her at nones, a lute strapped to his back like a weapon and a sword hanging on his saddle like an afterthought. “The prodigal protestant!” he said, as she approached. He was having an irritating day. News, carried on the lips of people whom he didn’t trust half as much as they thought he did, had found him an hour before that he was the knight in some chess match of Guinevere and Gawain’s. He didn’t like being a piece in a game; or if he was, he would prefer it to have been that of someone more interesting. It wasn’t the noble lady’s fault, of course. Still, he wasn’t a forgiving person. Forgiveness hadn’t brought Tristan and Iseult back. 

She took it with magnanimity. “You’re Sir Dinadan?”

“I am. Regrettably.” 

“I am Lady Nadeine. Your help is much appreciated.”

A bird twittered maddeningly, as though nature expected him to be heedful of its hints. “Right, yes, pleasantries.” He swallowed. She did seem like a very nice young woman. “I’m sorry you didn’t get a real knight for this.”

But it was fine. He would sort it out, like he sorted everything out. The world would unfurl itself a little for him and he would jockey it into some acceptable shape. It would be fine. 

They rode. 

From the second he arrived on the grounds of Lady Nadeine, he knew what he was hunting. She watched him with a perspicacious eye as he stabled his horse, leaving the sword where it was and the lute still strapped to him. She didn’t question him as he unemburdened himself of his armour and helmet, leaving them propped against the stable door. She didn’t question him when he gave her a shaky smile and set off back down the road to the chapel. She didn’t question him even though it was nearly night. 

When he reached the chapel at the edge of the grounds, the shadows had lengthened into an oil smear of the world, trees painted in desaturated greys and the sunset a watery coral. Drawing near the chapel, he slung the lute off his back and played a chord that scratched at his fingertips. He hadn’t played in several months-- not since Mark. There hadn’t been anyone to play for. But, if his insight into the way Guinevere played her games was correct, there might be now. So he gritted his teeth against a pain more nostalgic than physical and splayed his fingers across the frets. It was a waltz, just a waltz. He could do a waltz. 

He walked forward to the beat of his plucking, letting his breath carry him in a light sway from side to side. It wasn’t very good, but that was fine. It didn’t have to be good. It just had to be something that wasn’t the pain of loss or the glint of steel. And if it wasn’t enough, then there was very little Dinadan was scared to lose. 

How long he stood there, feet from the dilapidated stone of the chapel, he didn’t know. There was clearly something ethereal about it. Lancelot always picked the worst places to lose himself. 

Finally his fingers gave in to the cold and lost the melody, tripping into disharmonics and numbness. So he laid the lute on the grass and sat down next to it, his eyes closed. Eventually he heard the faint impression of someone sitting down next to him. Some time after that a hand, scarred and cold, found his. 

“I haven’t heard you play in quite some time,” came Lancelot’s soft voice, hoarse and rusty from disuse. 

“I know,” said Dinadan. “I didn’t really want to.”

And, because some things would never be right again, it didn’t bring Tristan and Iseult back. 


	6. Keta non esiste, Keta non resiste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aggravaine has a nice family day.

“Hang out with Yvain,” said Morgause. “He’s your cousin. He’s your age. You should talk to him. Maybe find out what he likes. Other than cats and those weird spinny things that Mordred always asks for.”

“He’s not my cousin,” said Aggravaine, not looking up from his book, “he’s Gawain’s cousin.”

This was a statement that made perfect sense in his head, but he was fortunate that none of his brothers were there or he would have been ridiculed. His mother would have ridiculed him whatever he said, so it wasn’t a problem. “That’s ridiculous,” she said, swatting him lightly on the head. “Go watch a movie with him or something. Here, this is his phone number. Morgan gave it to me on this used napkin from Denny’s, so it’s a bit smudged, but I’m sure you can figure it out.”

Aggravaine stared at the napkin. Through the hot sauce stains he could just make out ten loopy digits. “Great,” he said, “sounds like we have a lot in common. We both… eat.”

“You’re doing well already,” said Morgause, and turned back to her computer. “Keep it up and maybe he’ll learn your name.”

“Hey, Aggs,” said Yvain, proving that he was at least better than Morgause’s worst forecast. That didn’t necessarily mean he was very good, however. “Did you have a movie in mind?”

They had met at the Cineplex 250, because it was the movie theatre furthest from the neighbourhood of Aggravaine’s high school, and thus the place he was least likely to encounter anyone he knew. He hadn’t seen his reluctant cousin since Gawain’s disastrous 14th birthday party, but from snide overheard comments on Morgause’s side he had intimated that perhaps it would do to be cautious. All of Gawain’s friends tended to fall into two categories: way too cool for Aggravaine to even know their names (Priamus, Ettarde, Derek), or abject losers (Lancelot). All he remembered about Yvain was his cat obsession, and that alone plunked him firmly in the second category. But looking at him now, he didn’t seem particularly pathetic. He was wearing an oversized hoodie with the JAWS poster and his hair was dyed blue. He seemed, to all intents and purposes, to have grown into a nice, chill teenager. “Uh,” said Aggravaine, whose response to meeting nice and chill people was standoffishness, “I don’t really give a fuck. I’m here ‘cause my mother made me come.”

“Okay,” said Yvain. He had the gall to look mildly hurt. People weren’t supposed to look hurt when Aggravaine insulted them. They were supposed to insult him right back. “I thought it might be nice to catch up. I haven’t seen you since-- God, was it Gawain’s birthday party?”

“Yes,” said Aggravaine. 

“The one where he set the barn on fire?”

“Yes,” said Aggravaine. 

“And made you sing karaoke?”

“Yes,” said Aggravaine. 

“I remember that party,” Yvain said fondly. He pulled his earbuds out and shoved them in his pocket. “I fucking hated it. Hey, you wanna see Rocky Horror? We could get some food and come back for the midnight showing.”

Maybe this wouldn’t be unbearable after all. “Yeah,” said Aggravaine, and felt a smile tug at the corners of his lips, “yeah, that sounds good.”

As it turned out, the little cult classic movie theatre that hid behind the Cineplex was no longer playing _Rocky Horror Picture Show._ Instead all they were showing was _CATS_ 2019\. Aggravaine wanted to commit a murder. “Well,” said Yvain, staring at the sign with an expression of one watching his childhood home go up in flames, “we could pay money to watch CATS 2019. I might cry, though. I loved the filmed stage adaption.”

“Gawain keeps trying to get me to see it,” said Aggravaine miserably. 

“I’m so sorry.”

They stared at the sign some more. 

“I mean,” Aggravaine said, “I guess it would really piss him off if we saw it without him…”

Yvain gave him a look of terror. “You’re going to make me, your dear cousin whom you haven’t seen in years and who is a big fan of _CATS_ the musical, sit through _CATS_ 2019 just to piss off Gawain?”

Well, when you put it like that, it was an obvious decision. “Yeah. Absolutely.”

“Ouch. Okay, I’ll fork out for tickets.” He rummaged in his pockets, and Aggravaine’s attention was drawn to the paint splatters down the side of his pants. 

“Do you paint?”

“Hm?” Yvain glanced down, then back up at the cashier. “Oh. Hey, uh-- two tickets for CATS, please? Sorry?”

“You don’t need to apologize to me,” said the cashier tiredly. 

“Oh, okay. Sorry.” He accepted his tickets with a minimum of further apologies and returned to Aggravaine, semi-victorious. “Anyway, yeah, I do some spray paint and stuff.”

“What sort of stuff do you draw?” 

“Uh… mainly comic book stuff? I really like Black Panther. Yeah, mainly I draw Black Panther. And Catwoman sometimes.”

Aggravaine, who was always on the lookout for personality flaws in other people so as to feel better about his own metaphorical dirty laundry, was noticing a trend ripe for judgement. “Are you a furry, Yvain?”

“I’m not a--” Yvain jumped sideways away from the ticket booth, ostensibly in case anyone could overhear, and blubbered a bit. “I just like cats! I want to be a zookeeper! I’ve planned out my degree and everything! Anyway, that’s rich coming from Gawain’s brother.”

This was an Attack on Family, even if that Family was oft-bemoaned and Yvain was Family as well. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, God. You want a horrible Gawain story? Like, literally the last time I hung out with him?”

Aggravaine was not sure he did, but the allure of gossiping about his brother with someone with whom, he was realizing, he had much in common was very strong. “Uh. Sure. Can we get food, though?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Yvain ran a hand through his floppy blue hair and set off in the direction of the little strip mall across the street. “God. Okay, so, last summer I actually came to visit for a couple of days while you were gone-- I think you were doing some engineering camp?”

“Engineering camp is for nerds, I don’t do that shit,” groused Aggravaine, who had in fact been at a math camp. 

“Sorry, sorry. Anyway, I thought it would be fun because Gawain and I used to be really close. And we still get along, but like, we’re really different people. I’ve realised he’s really fun to hang out with one on one, but God, in bigger groups it’s a nightmare because I have _nothing in common_ with his friends. They’re so scary.”

“Which ones did he introduce you to?” asked Aggravaine, who hated Gawain’s friends on principle and was very excited to shittalk them. 

“Uh… first it was this really pretty girl who complained about how much she hated her boyfriend but she couldn’t break up with him because her dad wanted her to literally marry him as soon as she graduated high school?”

“Ettarde.”

“Yeah, yeah. Hold on, I can tell you the whole story. Ooh, boba. Can we get boba?”

They had indeed reached a boba shop, one of the good ones with oolong, which was all Aggravaine cared about. “Sure? I can pay,” he added generously, since Yvain hadn’t asked him to cover his own ticket for-- curse the name-- _CATS_ 2019\. 

Yvain pushed the door open. “Aw, that’s sweet. I can pay you back in this horrible story of social anxiety. Uh…” he said to the girl behind the cashier. “Could I get a jasmine milk tea with boba? Thanks.”

After giving his order and forking over some hard-earned cash, Aggravaine turned back to Yvain. The day was turning in a decidedly cathartic direction, and against his best wishes he found himself _liking_ his cousin. “Okay, story. I want this story.”

“Alright, alright,” said Yvain, sniggering. “So-- we hang out for a day or two and it goes really well, because I really do like him and he actually listens to me when I talk, which basically no one does ever. But then he asks me if I want to go to a house party.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh, yeah. And I was stressed off the bat because I had a phone date with my girlfriend because her fish had died?”

“Wow,” said Aggravaine. He thought it was very noble of him not to say _you have a girlfriend?_ even though it was very much the question on the forefront of his mind. 

The cashier called their order and Yvain darted over to the counter to retrieve their cups before settling down at one of the tables. “I know, it sounds really dumb, and I knew it sounded dumb so I didn’t tell Gawain about it because I thought he would make fun of me. So I just cancelled on her which was _so shitty_ and I still feel bad about it, but we’re good now and she got a new fish with the same name, so I guess it worked out okay. Anyway, I go to this house party and it’s at that girl’s house-- Ettarde. She was… fine? I mean, she seemed nice enough, but like, really not my type of person. Not in a mean way! Just different crowds. Same with that a bunch of his other friends. They were pretty much all drinking and I had, like, a cup, but I don’t like getting drunk and it was super stressful. At some point Gawain disappears and I do _not_ want to know what he was doing, but finally he shows up again and says he wants to introduce me to someone because I seem like I, and I quote, ‘need more friends.’ I _think_ he meant in the context of not knowing anyone there, but it still hurt a bit.”

Aggravaine had his face in his hands. “This sounds awful, I’m so sorry. As his brother, and also you’re cousin, I’m so sorry. I apologize for his existence.”

“Wait, wait--” Yvain protested, cracking up. “You haven’t heard the most awkward bits. So he drags me over to the corner to meet this friend of his who’s an exchange student from Egypt, I think? Or Italy? It was really confusing.” 

“Priamus,” mumbled Aggravaine, who was deeply concerned about the direction the story was heading. 

“Yeah! Priamus. He looked like he was, I don’t know, class president or a football star or something, but Gawain’s like hey! You two have tons in common! You’re both total nerds!” Yvain took a long sip of tea. “And then he just _leaves._ So I’m kind of sitting here like, hi, I like comic books and fantasy novels and stuff? And Priamus nods politely but clearly has no clue what I’m talking about. To this day I have _no clue_ why Gawain thought we would get along, but that’s not the point.”

“Oh, okay, to be fair, Priamus is a nerd,” said Aggravaine, happy to insult those he considered to be his betters. “Just about really weird things like classical architecture and religion.”

“I will take your word for it.” Yvain’s boba was nearly gone; he seemed to need it for emotional sustenance. “So, apparently Priamus got a different idea about why Gawain was introducing us.”

“ _No_ ,” breathes Aggravaine.

“Oh, yeah. He seemed like a nice guy, to be fair, within the limits of what he thought was happening. But yeah, after we chatted for a bit about food or something he asked me---”

Aggravaine was near tears from the comedic horror of it all. “No, don’t tell me. I can’t hear this. No.”

“Alright, alright. It was quite a graphic suggestion and I-- by that point I had gotten a Capri Sun and I-- I spit it on him.”

“ _No_ ,” hooted Aggravaine, who was enjoying the second-hand embarrassment immensely. 

“Yeah…” said Yvain wistfully. “Maybe my greatest moment. Scratch that, definitely my greatest accomplishment. But I haven’t told you the worst bit about this whole party.”

All of a sudden Aggravaine remembered how they had gotten onto this topic in the first place. “Tell me. Tell me tell me tell me.”

“It was nominally a costume party and Gawain was dressed as a cat. Or, like, a really slutty approximation of a cat.”

The world was a glorious place. “Jesus _fuck_ ,” breathed Aggravaine, “do you know how powerful you’ve made me? Do you know how fucking powerful I am?”

“Uh… you’re welcome?”

“Yvain,” he pronounced, placing his hands flat on the table and leaning forward to show he meant business, “I say this with full seriousness: you are my favourite relative. Thank you for this. Thank you. I cannot wait to watch _CATS_ 2019 with you and then bully Gawain about it.”

Yvain gave him a hesitant quirk of a smile from under his mop of blue hair. “Friends?”

“Friends,” announced Aggravaine, and they drank to it. 


	7. Sto guardando te perché sei un bono da paura

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more evil lancelot because i like him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so i wrote this like a month ago when lou broke his ankle. its the fic of lou which is why i used the word indolent and made so many sex jokes. to this day it's the most explicitly m/m thing my lesbian ass has written, so shout out to me im actually very proud

Lancelot hadn’t known Sir Gawain for long before he realised there was something special about him. Aside from the queen, there was no one who had shown an ounce of interest in him when, a tall and quiet newcomer, he had first taken up arms for King Arthur. 

But Sir Gawain had. And, gradually, Sir Gawain had become simply Gawain, and the cordial smiles had become wide, friendly grins with a raised eyebrow and an indolent stare Lancelot would never quite get over. There was something very dangerous about Gawain; Lancelot did not overlook this. But, if he did let himself be momentarily arrogant-- which he did not enjoy doing particularly-- he was a very dangerous man as well. You didn’t get close to King Arthur of Logres and Caerleon without being dangerous. 

“Why did you come to Camelot?” That was the question of the day, and Gawain asked it with a look in his eye like he knew the answer would not be an easy one. He sat in the corner of the armory, perched on a long bench with his legs tucked up in front of him and a knife sliding like liquid threw his absent-minded fingers. 

Lancelot thought about all the things he could say. It would be simple to lie, as simple as lying ever was-- he didn’t like it much, but sometimes it was better than the truth. But nothing about Gawain was simple, and he did not think it an overestimate to believe that Gawain knew him better than most. There would be no point in lying. “I was a wanted man.”

One corner of Gawain’s mouth curled up. “You’re still a wanted man.”

“You want me hanged?” teased Lancelot. He had finished oiling his armour some time ago, and there was no longer any reason for the two of them occupying the room. Still, they didn’t leave. “That’s news to me.”

“I’m sure we can find better uses for rope,” said Gawain, in the same tone of voice he used to talk about the weather. “Still, that’s charming of you. Really lovely. I think being wanted dead is an exemplary attribute. Any regrets?”

“None at all,” he said, unable to keep the grin from his face. Then he corrected himself. “Well. One. I miss my mother.”

“Oh? Where is she?”

“Near Marseille.” A thought crossed his mind. “I don’t suppose you want to take a trip to Occitania?” he asked, mostly in jest. 

But to his surprise Gawain’s laughing expression shifted to one of guarded appreciation. “Really? Me?”

“Yes, you,” said Lancelot. “Only if you want to. She would love to meet you, I promise.”

“Meeting me? What type of me?”

This was one of those odd little comments which Lancelot had never expected to have someone think he would understand. Every time the coat of arms dropped a little and Gawain invited him in, he felt-- _seen_ , somehow, and more accepted than life had given him cause to anticipate. He didn’t feel alone. “Just Gawain,” he said. It made sense to the both of them. “After all, she raised me.”

“What a remarkable woman she must be,” murmured Gawain. His eyes were distant, but the knife still drifted lazily in his hands. Then he stilled and his eyes snapped back into focus. Lancelot shivered slightly. “Yes. That would be nice. When do we leave?”

“After the tournament?”

“So I can run from Sir Tristan with my tail between my legs, yes,” Gawain said ruefully. “I think he has it out for me.”

“You give him too much credit. He doesn’t have it out for anyone, truly.”

“What, you’d prefer to be the one to make me bleed?”

And really, what was Lancelot supposed to do with a comment like that?


	8. A tutti quelli a cui ho dato il mio cuore e anche qualcosina di più

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is nothing

“Who is Sir Priamus?” said Dinadan, for the umpteenth time. It was nearing summer, which meant the armies were stamping their feet and preparing for the yearly ritual of half-heartedly fighting whoever was on the other side of the border with the best weather. Currently that was Cornwall, which was a bit inconvenient for Tristan. Instead of defending his homeland, he had decided to stay at the Joyous Garde and pretend to be Lancelot’s groundskeeper. This flew in blatant contradiction of the fact that anyone who knew Lancelot knew that he much preferred his grounds unkempt. But Tristan was never one to fully ass any plan. 

Iseult looked up from where she was sprawled by the grinding wheel, embroidering something rude onto one of Lancelot’s tapestries. “The knight?”

“No, Priamus the miller’s son.” The sword he was attempting to sharpen made a horrible squeaking noise. It wasn’t a very good sword. Dinadan had a habit of switching swords every time he defeated someone for the sole reason that it confused people, and he thought that was funny. “I keep hearing about Sir Priamus this, Sir Priamus that. Apparently he’s going to lead the southern troops in our campaign against Cornwall. Which means he’s my commander, technically. And I don’t know who he is.”

“Tall chap,” said Iseult, placing one hand over her head to illustrate her point. “Really attractive. Follows Sir Gawain around like a happy wolfhound. Lancelot hates him.”

Dinadan had managed to put a face to the name, and moreover to paint a very succinct picture of the man’s general personality and the reasons for Lancelot disliking him. Lancelot tended to dislike anyone who floated through life with the kind of aimless enjoyment he, in his half-formed shadowed way, so coveted-- and, of course, there was Sir Gawain. “Oh, wonderful. Yes. I know who he is now. A bit of a bastard?”

Pursing her lips in a considerate manner, Iseult shrugged. “I like him. He’s really nice and one time I stole food with him. I think you would like him too. He’s not much of a romantic.”

_Not much of a romantic_ was Iseult’s politic way of describing what Dinadan considered to be his greatest accomplishment; i.e., no tragic love affairs that doomed him and his _amie_ (or possibly, as with many knights, _ami_ ) to a short and brutal life filled with drama and living at friends’ castles for indeterminate amounts of time. In his opinion, the world was filled with far too much romance. He understood sex, in the abstract way you might appreciate that cheese brings some people great pleasure even if you yourself are lactose intolerant, but _romance_ was beyond him. Wasn’t love enough? Why did people have to muck it up with intangible distinctions? “Well,” he said aloud, “we soon shall see. I have a council of war with him and hypothetically Tristan as well, because the king keeps forgetting that Tristan isn’t actually one of his knights.”

“I could pretend to be Tristan if he doesn’t want to go,” suggested Iseult. It was not clear even to Dinadan whether she was joking or not. She _did_ do a very good Tristan impression. 

“Hm. Possible.” Dinadan withdrew his sword from the grinding wheel and flicked it experimentally. “I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m sure he’ll show up. There’s no way he’d abandon me to spend an hour in a war council with this Sir Priamus by myself.”

Tristan abandoned him to spend an hour in a war council with Sir Priamus by himself. As Iseult pointed out, he had a very valid reason, which was that he didn’t want to be there. This didn’t make Dinadan feel particularly charitably towards him, because Dinadan also didn’t want to be there but he was anyway. In fact, for a good half an hour, he was the _only_ person there. The renowned Sir Priamus was notably absent from his own meeting.

Finally, when Dinadan had gotten so bored he’d pulled out a tin whistle and started to play aggravating airs on it, the canvas flap of the tent flew open to admit Sir Priamus, commander of the southern armies. 

“Oh, hi,” he said, with an amiable smile that did little to ingratiate him to Dinadan, who was prepared to be irritated over the crimes of tardiness and proximity to Sir Gawain. “Sorry I’m late.”

“No worries,” said Dinadan, swinging his feet off the table and tucking the tin whistle away in his belt. He wished desperately that Tristan was there. Tristan was also an airheaded violent nitwit, but at least he was an airheaded violent nitwit with taste. Perhaps it wasn’t fair of him to judge-- he very much liked Lancelot, who was neither an airhead nor a nitwit but was very much of the violent persuasion and also of the Sir Gawain persuasion. He would be objective. Iseult said he would like this man, and Iseult was generally right about these things. 

“Alright,” said Sir Priamus, neglecting the multiple chairs in favour of sitting down on the table where Dinadan’s boots had been a moment before. “Are you Sir Tristan?”

Dinadan thought about it. “Yes.”

“Wonderful, wonderful. Uh… who’s the other fellow who’s supposed to be here?”

“Sir Dinadan,” said Dinadan. The morning was looking up. “I wouldn’t worry about him. He’s not very intelligent.”

“Oh,” said Sir Priamus, and to his credit he looked slightly uncomfortable. “Ga-- someone told me he was really smart.”

Despite himself, this was flattering. It was always good to find out your enemies respected you, especially if you didn’t respect them at all in return. “Anyway, what’s this council of war about?”

Sir Priamus ran a hand through his chin-length black hair and only succeeded in mussing it further. “Well, to be honest it’s not so much a military council as a kind of, well, get-to-know-each-other council.”

Dinadan blinked. “You called a council of the top-ranked southern knights to… hang out?”

“Uh… yeah.”

“With Tr-- with me, Tristan of Cornwall? _Voluntarily_?”

Sir Priamus gave him a long introspective look like a priest to parishioner. “Don’t put yourself down. Do you have some deep-seated self-hatred that you need to think about?”

“I--” This was not at all what Dinadan had expected from someone Iseult had described as a ‘happy wolfhound.’ On that topic, _did_ Tristan have deep-seated self-hatred? Dinadan didn’t think so. Dinadan didn’t think Tristan had deep-seated anything, except maybe lust. Did _Dinadan_ have deep-seated self-hatred? Yes, absolutely, and he thought it rather impolite of a stranger to point this out. He squinted at Sir Priamus, with his earnest eyes and menacing cheekbones. “So, just to clarify, you have nothing of any strategic importance to discuss with me?”

Sir Priamus appeared to think about it and draw a blank. “No! I just wanted to get to know new people, especially if we’re going to be working together. I’ve heard wonderful things about the both of you.”

“That’s…” Dinadan struggled to put any negative spin on this revelation. “That’s very nice of you.”

“Yeah, I’m a really nice person. Anyway, how has your week been?”

“Very weird, culminating in this bizarre encounter with you. Yourself?”

“I had a good day yesterday,” said Sir Priamus, as though Dinadan hadn’t said anything out of the normal. “Did you know that Gawain is entirely inflammable?”

“I didn’t.” He filed this information away under ‘Ways Not To Kill Sir Gawain,’ and also ‘Statements With Horrifying Implications.’ “Thank you for sharing. I treasure these snippets of information I learn without asking, I really do. It makes the world so much more amusing. How long are you planning for us to sit in a war pavilion and chat about our lives? It’s very brave of you, I must say.”

Sir Priamus opened his mouth to answer, but before he could say anything the tent flap opened once more to admit-- oh, dear. It might have been Tristan, if you looked at a picture of him in a bad light and also he had lost about a foot and a half of height. Of course, Iseult knew Tristan very well indeed in a deeply Biblical sense, and was well-acquainted with his mannerisms and body language, so the result would have been relatively convincing had not there been a claimed Tristan in the room already.

“Hello, bastards,” proclaimed Iseult-as-Tristan, stamping over to the table. “What’s the lay of the land?”

“Dreadful,” mumbled Dinadan, his face buried in his hands. 

Priamus gave the newcomer a friendly wave. “Are you Sir Dinadan?” 

From his view of Iseult barred by fingers, Dinadan watched the situation present itself to her, watched her make a series of very quick realisations, and watched her decide to ignore them all. “No, I’m Sir Tristan of Cornwall,” she said, “the one and only. You are very handsome, by the way.”

“Oh, boy,” said Dinadan, very quietly. This might be treason, technically. The man was their commander.

Sir Priamus gave the both of them a long look which started at suspicious and ended at amused, passing through several adventurous territories along the way. “You guys are great,” he said eventually, a wide smile cracking his face. “Do you want to go get lunch?”


	9. Non capisco se la noia è il mio boia o una mia paranoia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is saved on a google doc called "the worst thing i've ever written" and its also in a horrible horrible cursive font in a vain attempt to protect the reader. i hate it.

You have to understand something about hate. Hate isn’t love. Writers throughout the ages have talked about how hate and love are only two sides of the same coin; how easy it is to flip from one to the other; how both are only different veils worn by Passion. 

But hate isn’t love. That’s a handy idiom bandied about by people scared by the dark corners of their minds. In truth, hate is a mask frequently worn by those who don’t want to admit something much worse. 

When Chrétien opened his eyes the world was bright. Not the brightness of being blinded after too long in the dark, but the true brightness of a pale morning in a windowed room. Somewhere near his head, curtains shifted in a faint breeze, and he could smell flowers. 

“Bonjour?” he said, because he was French. 

There was some shuffling of papers to his left. Trying to turn his head, he winced-- the pain was sharp and violent. Whatever had landed him in this room, he hoped it did not resurface. “Je m’appelle Chrétien de Troyes, je suis un écrivain. Je viens de Champagne, peut-être vous auriez entendu mon nom, en fait je suis très célèbre--”

“Yes, yes,” said a voice in Welsh. Chrétien knew Welsh, because he needed to learn it to make fun of Perceval. “That’s enough of that. Your wounds are quite severe, sir. Do you remember how you came to acquire them?” 

A man came into his field of view. Tall, sharp-featured, with eyes like a hawk. Red hair like a villain from Chrétien’s favourite bit of Christianity, the Bible. He searched his memory for how he had been injured and came up blank. “No, good sir,” he said, “but it hurts a lot.”

“Yes, that doesn’t surprise me,” said the man, his voice business-like. “The medics tell me you were stabbed quite a few times. Also, someone carved a name into your back.”

“What name?” Chrétien asked, in case it was a good one.

“That doesn’t matter.” The man looked somewhat shifty. “It definitely doesn’t offer any clues as to who might have tried to kill you, so I wouldn’t worry about it. 

“Alright,” said Chrétien. “Who are you, then?”

“Ah.” His mouth thinned minutely. “My name is Sir Kay of the Round Table. You may have heard of me.”

The news did not hit Chrétien all of a sudden. He blinked once, took in the walls of the room-- wood, not stone, not like the sturdy construction of the castles in Champagne. Older. It was as though he had opened his eyes to a world that hadn’t heard about all the cool things you could do with rock. For some reason this was the only thought that he managed to articulate. “Do you like rock?” 

Sir Kay-- whoever he might be-- looked confused. “As opposed to what? Dirt?”

“No, no…” Chrétien trailed off into silence, confused at his own inarticulateness. He was a writer, for Heaven’s sake! Where were his words? What strange spell had this man cast over him? He had said his name was Sir Kay of the-- the phrase finally made it through one of his ears and into his mind. “You’re who?”

“Sir Kay,” he repeated evenly, “knight of the Round Table and seneschal to King Arthur. I may have something of a reputation, but you needn’t trouble yourself, I am simply here to find out who you are and how you came to Logres.”

“You’re Sir Kay?”

“Unless I am drastically mistaken.”

“I-- but you seem so--” Chrétien stopped. He didn’t know what Kay seemed. He didn’t know anything, least of all what to say. The situation had presented so many impossibilities: he was injured, but alive; he was in Wales, but also in Logres; and he was talking to the man he had spent five romances vilifying. “But,” he managed, “you seem so nice.”

One corner of Sir Kay’s mouth lifted. “First time I’ve heard that one,” he said. “Come, then. You say your name is Chrétien. What a… Christian name.”

“Yes,” squeaked Chrétien. He did not know why his voice suddenly felt small. “That’s what it means.”

“Compensating for something?”

Well, there was the Sir Kay that he would have expected. Wicked-sharp tongue, Chrétien had always thought, and now it took a tremendous force of will not to focus on the imagery. A tongue like that could get into places it wasn’t, theologically speaking, supposed to. “I am a very good Christian,” he said, closing his eyes against the image of the impossible room and the impossible time and the impossible, impossible man. “I pray to Mary, because she is like Marie de Champagne, my mistress. And Jesu, of course, because he is bleeding naked on the cross for our sins.”

“I do not understand the point of this. Do you derive some pleasure from it?”

Chrétien thought very hard about the pleasures of praying on one’s knees, and didn’t focus on other possible activities in that position at all. What was happening to him? “Yes,” he said. “There is great pleasure to be derived from Christianity, yes.”

“Well,” said Sir Kay, in a measured tone of voice, “I am Welsh. According to the book we found on your person, I do not understand such things.”

His heart stopped. No, no, he couldn’t have read it. No. “What book?”

“Something called Perceval,” Sir Kay said, drawing out the words, “or the Story of the Grail. Does that sound familiar to you, Monsieur de Troyes?”

“Jesu,” Chrétien blasphemed quietly. 

Sir Kay took a controlled step forward and seated himself on the corner of the cot. “He doesn’t appear to have figured in it much, no, but I was there in some detail.”

“I’m sorry,” said Chrétien. He was normally a very taciturn person, and he did not understand why he wanted this strange horrible man to think the best of him. “It was a mistake, I’m sorry you came across as so, so mean--”

“Oh, Monsieur de Troyes.” Sir Kay regarded him with lidded eyes. “I can be very mean indeed.”

With him in such close proximity, certain things resolved themselves very much for Chrétien. What was theology, anyway? Simply a vessel to talk about Alexander the Great. He took a deep breath. “Perhaps… when I am more well… you can show me.”

“When you are more well?” Another one of those damned half-smiles. “We can make that happen as soon as we like. This is Camelot, Chrétien.” He trailed the name mockingly over his teeth. 

The potion was produced in some readiness, although Chrétien was in such a haze he did not see from whence it came. When he sipped it, the tangy aroma pierced his every pore, and he felt suddenly revitalized. Experimentally, he turned his head. The pain from earlier had gone. “Why didn’t you give this to me before?”

Sir Kay shrugged. He was sitting even closer to the head of the bed now. “Well, to be honest, you seemed a bit of a bastard.”

“I can be a bit of a bastard if that’s what you want,” said Chrétien, not letting any logic supersede the base impulse of his words. 

“Really? How about you show--”

If there was one thing that Chrétien de Troyes knew, it was that nothing stood in the way of Sir Kay’s wicked mouth. Nothing, that is, save perhaps another mouth, so he made a valiant attempt. 

“Hmm,” hummed Sir Kay at length. “Perhaps, with your willingness, I should check that name on your back once more to make sure it’s not recognizable.”

“Perhaps there are other scars somewhere on my flesh,” said Chrétien breathlessly. Even Alexander could not compare to this! The only thing that would make it better was hair. 

“I can certainly make an exami

The humble author of this narrative must pause here to recount the deeds of the charmingly-good-at-graffiti-ing-his-own-name-into-skin Sir Gawain. The deeds of Sir Gawain are as follows:

Lady Sparrow  
Lady Pearl  
Lord Bertilak  
Sir Lancelot  
Lady Adeline  
[... ]  
Sir Lionel  
  
Here end the deeds of Sir Gawain, may they be updated soon.


	10. Non scherzare con la main bitch!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lancelot???? what the FUCK is up with lancelot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes you drive 14 hours to look after some dogs in flagstaff and then when you get there you need to write because youve been sequestered in a car all day and also your friend can't go to sleep and needs distracting. these situations aligned to produce lancelot.

“What is the deal with Sir Lancelot?” said Hadrian, a month into his stay at Camelot. He was sitting in the king’s gardens with Léline, the daughter of Sir Aglovale. In Hadrian’s professional opinion, she looked nothing like her father-- she was very pretty, for one, and ‘pretty’ was not generally a word used to describe Sir Aglovale. 

Léline gave him an odd expression like he’d broached an uncommon topic and stopped what she had been doing before, which was twirling a strand of hair around one finger. “What do you mean what the deal is with Sir Lancelot? He’s the greatest knight in the world,” she added reproachfully, as though this was a legally required addendum to any statement about Sir Lancelot. 

“Yes,” said Hadrian patiently, because he really did like Léline very much even if he did not need to be informed at every turn that the post of greatest knight in the world was already filled. It was demoralizing. But they never meant anything by it. “I know he’s the greatest knight in the world. But, well-- why? What did he do, exactly?”

A bumblebee drifted lazily through the thick summer air and made a slow circuit around Léline’s head, tracing a halo above her hair. She leant back on the bench, frowning carefully. “Well, he-- he did a lot of things. You really haven’t heard of them?”

“I was raised in a forest,” Hadrian reminded her, “and knew no human contact save the witch of the woods who told me which mushrooms not to eat. I’m a bit behind on the times.”

“Which mushrooms are you not supposed to eat?”

“The ones that kill you,” said Hadrian, and recognized that the earnestness in his voice was probably slightly ridiculous. “I will give you mushroom classes if you want. Or just mushrooms. Both options are available.”

She snickered, swatting him with one arm, and then sobered slightly. “Well. Sir Lancelot. There are a lot of stories about Sir Lancelot.”

“Oh?” Hadrian leaned closer. Her eyes were warm and knowing in the heat of the afternoon. “Will you tell me stories, then?”

Birds twittered above. The sun shone. “Stories about Sir Lancelot…” Léline mused. “Yes, anyone at Camelot has a few of those up their sleeve.”

“Here are the things they say about Sir Lancelot:’

‘They say that when he came to Camelot, he was no one and nothing. He had no name most people knew, although the queen kept it guarded in a box in the tallest tower of the castle, where no one could hurt it. She did this because she knew that one day many people would want to hurt him, and his name was the weakest thing about him. It meant nothing, not at the beginning. Not when he had just come to court and knew no one.’

‘Sir Lancelot du Lac, being the son of a witch-queen--”

_“Son of a witch-queen?” interrupted Hadrian, curious. “Isn’t that Sir Gawain?”_

_Léline regarded him seriously. “Hadrian, you will find that the children of witch-queens are far more common than you would assume, and also that they are slightly different from you or I. Have you heard that Sir Gawain will lose no fight he fights at noon?”_

_“No.” This seemed supremely unfair to Hadrian, whose only power was mushroom-finding. “Can I get that?”_

_“You don’t want the curses that come with blessings,” said Léline. “When you walk through the world differently, Fate starts to take notice. Anyway, you asked for stories about Sir Lancelot, not Sir Gawain. Shut your mouth and listen to me, Sir Hadrian.”_

_“Yes, sir,” said Hadrian, grinning._

“As I was saying, Sir Lancelot du Lac is the son of the witch-queen Viviane, ruler of the rivers of Occitania. Or… lakes, maybe. It’s water, at any rate, I’m pretty sure about that. Being the son of such a powerful woman, he came to court with three things: a magic ring that divested his eyes of all enchantment, a cloak which concealed him from the eyes of the imperceptive, and directions to serve the foremost apostles of chivalry. But when he arrived at Camelot, the halls were so swamped with men claiming to be the best knight in the realm that he did not know where to turn. The only person who showed him kindness was the queen, who saw immediately that he had a magic ring and a magic cloak and sharp eyes. So she kept his name safe for him while he decided what to do with it.’

‘And so it was that, three months after he arrived, a wicked prince by the name of-- of-- Melleas, I think? I am roughly sure it was Melleas.Yes, the wicked prince Melleas sought revenge against the queen for being the most beautiful person in the world, and also for asking one of the many witch-queens involved in this story to curse him with bad weather wherever he went. Both of these things were listed in his grievances. Even if Guinevere had dwindled her days away in a rotten tower in Gorre, Melleas would not have inherited her position as the most beautiful person in the world. He was not very beautiful. It was a bad plan.’

‘But, bad plan or not, he stole into Camelot under cover of night and also cover of everyone being drunk at a banquet, and abducted the queen before anyone had the chance to do any of the very important responses that should have occurred in the situation. You know King Arthur is a bit weird about meals.”

_“He is?” Hadrian had not concerned himself with what Camelot was eating for dinner; he tended to forage from the nearby ornamental gardens._

_“He’s very weird,” said Léline firmly. “You will discover this.”_

_“Huh. Thank you for the warning.”_

“Well, Prince Melleas rode off with the queen bound to the saddle behind him. The only knight who dared stir on her behalf was Sir Kay. Unfortunately Sir Kay is only a knight because he is good at taxes, not at being a knight, so he was added to the saddle. It was at this interval that Sir Lancelot decided he must act on his own, and not follow the lead of the sought-after apostles of chivalry, none of whom appeared to be doing much. So he saddled his horse and charged out of Camelot without telling anyone, with his magic ring and magic cloak and none of the guidance he was told to seek.’

‘As it was, he was not the only knight who left to rescue Queen Guinevere and Sir Kay. The king’s nephew, Sir Gawain, also saddled his horse and two chargers beside and rode out of the halls with much fanfare. I do not know how events progressed from there, but the first we heard tell of Sir Lancelot was when rumors of a disgraced knight reached Camelot, a knight who was towed on a prison cart from town to town and paraded for his shame. We did not know his name then, and by the time we found out he had accomplished such terrific feats that his earlier infamy was occluded. After this, the story carries on only in snippets: I know he met Sir Gawain, I know he crossed the terrible Sword Bridge, I know--”

_“Hold on,” said Hadrian, waved a hand. “Sword Bridge?”_

_Léline nodded somberly. “Sword Bridge.”_

_“What’s the-- what’s the Sword Bridge? A bridge made of sword?”_

_“Have you seriously never heard of the Sword Bridge?”_

_“Forest. Mushrooms.” It was a reminder Hadrian was quite accustomed to giving._

“Right. Forest and mushrooms. The Sword Bridge is-- well, they say that when Sir Balin struck the Dolorous Stroke it rotted the land to the north of Logres. The chasms run deep through the earth, disturbing the natural state of things. Some of those chasms run far beyond the Wasteland, and one such is carved into the earth between Logres and the kingdom of Gorre. The Sword Bridge was a regular bridge, once. It had planks and posts and railings. But when the peaceful river it crossed drained into the broken scars of the earth, the Dolorous Stroke _changed_ it the way it changed natural landscapes. The railings became sharp and brittle, like a rusted blade. The bridge lengthened. The planks rotted through. They say to cross it looks as easy as walking the king’s roads, but the second you set foot on it, even the most nimble of acrobats will find themselves growing dizzy and disoriented. And there are only two things to grab onto: the sword-sharp rail on one side, and the empty air on the other. That is the Sword Bridge, and Sir Lancelot crossed it.’

‘When he returned with the queen, everyone knew his name. As soon as they arrived in Camelot, Guinevere took it carefully from the iron chest where she kept it and placed it on his breast for all to see. And from that day on, Sir Lancelot was ever-loyal to the queen and to Sir Gawain.”

_“That’s very nice,” said Hadrian, somewhat dazily. The heat and the mesmerizing texture of Léline’s voice were getting to him. “I’ve never heard any of that. But why do-- I mean-- they don’t look at him like someone who saved their queen.”_

_Léline looked shifty. “Well, he’s accomplished great things. I wouldn’t deny that. But there are always rumors in any court.”_

_“Rumors?”_

“Here are the things they say about Sir Lancelot:’

‘They say he can walk on water. They say he does not need his cloak to pass unnoticed through the streets. They say his sword talks to him. They say he listens to it. They say he could beat Sir Gawain in a fight at noon. They say he bears no loyalty to the king. And they say he kills anyone he wants to kill. Those are the things they say about Sir Lancelot.”

“A knight with no name,” said Hadrian, when the things they said about Sir Lancelot had been sufficiently enumerated. “From strange lands. Has someone else already walked every bit of my path far better than I could ever hope to do?” 

Léline snorted. “Well, I wouldn’t care to be sitting on a bench with Sir Lancelot. He seems a very-- a very kind man. He has been nice to me. Truly, he has. But whatever happens when he rides out, it brings back dark stories.”

“Well,” said Hadrian, curiosity satisfied in what he thought was quite an enjoyable way, “it’s a good thing then that you’re not sitting on a bench with Sir Lancelot. I’m Sir Hadrian, and I will gladly listen to your stories for hours on end. Sir Lancelot will not trouble us. He might never return to the ignominy of the knight of the cart, but since he has never given me a second glance, I will return him the honor of not caring.”

And, years later, when Sir Lancelot had returned to the cast-off chivalry from which he had sprung, he still didn’t spare a glance for Sir Hadrian on the steps of the tower to the queen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank god i've got ten chapters with myss keta lyrics now i can switch to joan baez lyrics thank the fucking lord


	11. how the winds are laughing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is it. This is the most obscure possible Arthurian AU. I've done it. I hope this is absolutely illegible to everyone who reads it. If so, it has achieved its purpose.

“He does ASCA,” said Guienevere, shoving kibble into Wait’s crate. Wait was her Pyrenean Shepherd, full kennel name _May Queen’s Ahhh Ahhhh Wait Wait_ , so named because that was what Lancelot had said when Guinevere had texted him asking what to name her new puppy. “ _ASCA_ , Lancelot. You want to fuck a guy who does ASCA?” 

Lancelot blushed behind the grooming stand. He was ostensibly using a pair of clippers to shear Secace’s underfur, although because Secace didn’t like to be groomed, not much was actually occurring. At least the border collie provided a blockade to hide his face from Guinevere. “I don’t want to fuck him!” he protested. “All I asked was if you thought we’d get along. Because we did. At that Cynosports party. I mean, he does USDAA, he can’t be that bad, right?”

Guinevere abandoned Wait to his midday howls and placed her hands on the grooming table to stare at Lancelot over Secace’s ruff. Even by the standards of border collies, Secace was reactive, but he abided Guinevere with the look of a dog who knew he was no longer the pack leader at the moment. She raised an eyebrow to indicate that, for once, she was being honest. “He was only at Cynosports because he has one agility dog named Gringolet who’s some horrifying combination of a Borzoi and a Doberman, and if you’re thinking that sounds like it couldn’t make course time you would be wildly, inconceivably wrong. That dog is a fucking monstrosity and Gawain got banned from competing at AKC events after he beat up a guy who laughed at the one bar he’d knocked all weekend. USDAA is one of the only agility venues that will take him. Normally he does ASCA, and moreover, Lancelot, he does ASCA _conformation._ With _Aussies._ Aussies with _feathers._ Which get featured every single fucking month in _Aussie Times_ because his kennel keeps winning the Gold Bell Star or whatever those ASCA assholes do when your dog fucks real good.”

“Conformation?” Lancelot whimpered. “You’re not serious?”

“Conformation,” Guinevere confirmed. 

Sagging down onto the grooming table and ignoring Secace making a bid for freedom over his shoulder, Lancelot said, “Oh. Pro-docker and everything?”

“No, that’s the funny thing, actually. He got grandfathered into the conformation regulations somehow. Some loophole to do with his kennel registration. His dogs have tails. They’re good dogs.” She sniffed. “For Aussies. What Cynosports party was this, anyway?”

“You were out with Morgan at Applebees,” said Lancelot. Morgan was Guinevere’s wife and also Lancelot’s dog-sitter of choice, although she had a habit of kidnapping him as well when she thought he needed to relax a bit. She had also been to Worlds five years running with the same dog-- unlike Lancelot, who had also made the team for five years now, but with different dogs each time. He had a lot of dogs. “We were just watching the first place videos, mainly, but since Arthur was there he turned a blind eye to everyone bringing wine into the scoring room. You know me, I would have happily sat in the corner and watched the proceedings, but Gawain recognized me from Bologna. Said he remembered me because of the-- the _Incident_.”

The _Incident_ had occurred at Lancelot’s catastrophic first Worlds competition, wherein he had run a perfect first day and been top of the boards before he had tripped on the stands and fallen backwards over the bannister. Miraculously he had managed a complete 360 in the air and landed on his feet some ten yards below, but the judges had been so horrified at the event that they’d insisted he withdraw from competition and go to the emergency room. 

“Hmm,” said Guinevere. “Well. It was quite impressive.” “I almost died!” “Anyone else would have died. You were fine. Buck up. Oh, also, he’s my nephew.”

Both Lancelot and Secace turned to stare at her. “ _What_?”

“Well, he’s Morgan’s nephew, and also he’s my age, but technically he is my nephew as well. I’ve known him for almost fifteen years. And I’ve only known you for five, so you’re losing. Oh, shut up.” This last was to Wait, who was barking at a passing pigeon. 

“How have you never introduced us?” Lancelot protested. “We got along great. He seems really cool. Aside from the-- ah-- ASCA conformation.”

“He’s your polar opposite in every way that matters,” said Guinevere mildly, and took the shears from him to address Secace’s ruff herself. 

Lancelot didn’t say anything to this. It was his own personal opinion that Guinevere had a somewhat rosy view of him, which was amusing considering she was otherwise the most cynical person he’d ever met. But she didn’t know about the reason he’d gotten banned from NADAC trials, or what had happened to the backyard breeder down the street who hadn’t tested for canine epilepsy in the sire. No, she had found out on the first day she met him (via Morgan) that he was afraid of Chihuahuas, and that had been that. Beside him Secace made some grumbling sounds that indicated he was unhappy about getting groomed. Lancelot scratched his head absentmindedly. “If they don’t ban other breeds at the pre-trials, I might be at Aussie Nationals this year. I’ve got to work on exposing the puppy.” The puppy was Rouge, a red bi ostensible border collie that Guinevere claimed was just a skinny Australian Cattle Dog that someone had dyed. He had some problems, namely that he tried to eat anything and anyone that wasn’t Lancelot, but because Lancelot didn’t have many friends and didn’t go anywhere outside of his ranch, this was manageable. Lancelot had been entertaining hopes of bringing him to Nationals with the vague idea he would eat all the competitive Aussies and clear the competition. 

“Are you telling me you’re going to Aussie Nationals just to show people up in pre-trials and impress my asshole nephew? Because you hung out with him at a Cynosports gripe party?”

“We really connected,” said Lancelot, not looking at her, “and he asked if I wanted to run Team with him at the UKI trial in March. Everyone knows not to run Team with me, Guin.”

She regarded him for a moment, Secace’s ruff abandoned. “Okay,” she said eventually. “Just don’t let Gringolet eat you. Or Gawain, in a metaphorical sense. Or less than metaphorical sense.”

“Thanks,” he said dryly, and the day wore on, and UKI came and went, and only one of Guinevere’s listed concerns came to pass. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...alright here's your glossary of key terms.  
> ASCA (Australian Shepherd Club of America)-- biggest breed-specific club in the US  
> Conformation-- an event that's the closest to a stereotypical "dog show." The regulations are demanding and frequently detrimental to breed health.  
> Pro-docker-- someone who thinks that "Real Aussies Have Tails." It's a near-political stance within ASCA and pro-dockers are almost uniformly Republicans. As of now ASCA conformation regulations consider a tail to be a fault and will dock (ha) points for it.  
> Cynosports-- the USDAA yearly championship event  
> USDAA (United States Dog Agility Association)-- the foremost agility-specific venue in the US. Takes all breeds but titles are generally dominated by border collies with a few Aussies sprinkled in for good measure.  
> AKC (American Kennel Club)-- the most famous dog competition venue in the US. Horribly unethical don't @ me.  
> Aussie Nationals-- the yearly ASCA championship event.  
> Pre-trials-- the agility trial open to all breeds prior to the championship at Aussie Nationals, which is restricted to Aussies. There's controversy over whether all breeds should be allowed to compete but since I think they should I'm saying they can here.  
> NADAC (I don't even know what it stands for that's how irrelevant it is)-- an agility venue that has faded a lot in popularity.  
> UKI (UK agility International)-- a newfangled European-style agility venue that's made its way to the US with the help of people like Dave and Erica. Will I tell you who Dave and Erica are? No. If you know you know.


	12. here comes your ghost again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Well, I'll be damned  
>  Here comes your ghost again  
> But that's not unusual  
> It's just that the moon is full  
> And you happened to call_  
> \--"Diamonds and Rust," Joan Baez

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what can i say lou inspired me

The tomb was peaceful, all things considered. It was quiet and beautiful in its simplicity. The fine grey walls arced up and the only light trickled in through a faint slit in the western wall, illuminating the stone slabs only just before sunset. It was the sort of place Lancelot would have been pleased to be buried in.

It was so wrong for Gawain.

He had come because he had to come. The letter had been clear-- Gawain did love him, in the end, and forgave him, and wanted to be forgiven himself. The concept that it was Gawain who had been in the wrong was, astoundingly, something that had never crossed Lancelot's mind. After all, Lancelot reasoned as his sturdy Continental boots darkened the doorstep of his lover's final resting place, Gawain hadn't killed any extraneous brothers. Then he remembered Hector, and corrected himself. Gawain hadn't killed as many extraneous brothers, and in a very Manichaean style of thinking was thus the innocent party. It was funny. Gawain had never been innocent in life, and Lancelot hadn't cared in the slightest. Lancelot had killed many people's brothers, and he hadn't cared about that either. But as soon as the rope between them snapped, Gawain had never seemed more blameless and Lancelot had never felt more guilty. And now here they were, reunited once more and feeling all the pain they had been so good at not feeling when they were together.

“Hey, Gawain,” said Lancelot, stepping through the doorframe of the small chapel. He felt as though he needed to announce himself. He had never needed to announce himself before; Gawain always _knew_ , somehow, that he was there, and would make some laughter-tinged comment about his arrival without even bothering to turn his head. But Gawain wasn’t in a position to say anything much now, and so for once it was Lancelot who had to do the talking. His voice felt scratchy and deeper than usual. When was the last time he had used it? He had met a hermit on the road and shriven three days ago. Or four, perhaps. There was no point in time anymore. 

The cold white of the sarcophagus stared back at him, bland and impersonal. It was carved in the Roman style, which was the only part of this affair that truly felt right for Gawain, but the likeness on the marble was a poor reflection of the living person. Kind eyes stared out from a smooth, pretty face. Hands crossed demurely over a bouquet of olive leaves. The mouth stretched in an expression of placid contentment. Whoever it was, it wasn’t Gawain. 

Feeling sullied and heretical, Lancelot ducked inside. He felt too dirty for the chapel: his clothes-- not armour, he had forsaken armour-- were torn and stained, his boots were scuffed, and there was dried blood on his hands from the bandit who’d tried his luck that morning. Living Gawain might have appreciated that last one, would have clucked his tongue and mocked him gently for forgetting his hygiene. Dead Gawain was too pristine to be touched with bloody hands. 

“It’s a nice place you’ve got here,” said Lancelot awkwardly. It was relieving that Gawain wasn’t alive to listen, because the words sounded stupid even as he said them. He had never felt stupid in front of Gawain. “It’s really-- I like it. I would live here. I would be dead here. I’m sorry you’re here.”

The carved face of the Maidens’ Knight stared back at him pleasantly. 

Patting his pocket, Lancelot produced the rumpled letter he had received with such horror. It had lost its unique dreadfulness now. The writing was cramped and panicked, words crossed out with such vehemence that in places they tore through the parchment. The ink was smeared with blood and tears from both of them. But it was just a piece of parchment, and Lancelot was not one to attach excessive importance to material things. “I brought you your letter back,” he announced. “I don’t want it anymore. You asked me to pray at your grave. I don’t think I’ll do that. You weren’t-- you were never afraid of going to Hell when you were alive. And I loved you, Gawain. I loved you so much.”

There was no response. Of course there was no response, but the silence was so damning and so _real_ that the tears Lancelot had withheld on his long pilgrimage finally burst forth. He felt like a young boy again, hearing for the first time that his father was dead. He felt like an adult, moved by beauty. He felt tired and very, very alone. 

“I loved you, and I was bad at saying it, because I was bad at saying everything. I should have said it more. I should have been better.” Careful not to touch the marble facade with his red-stained fingers, he prowled to the side of the tomb and knelt before it like a penitent at an altar. 

It was funny to think that only a few scant inches of stone separated him from the bones of someone who had always been so much more alive than him. Lancelot was no stranger to death, and certainly no stranger to corpses, but somehow the reality of finding that a dead person had once been a living person, and that the living person was not here to find laughter in the dead, was a startlement. They had stood at many graves together, and flesh had covered bones, and skin had covered flesh, and their bodies had been warm and comforting and not cased in marble. 

He didn’t try to touch the cold slab before him. “You know, I killed your son. I don’t think you would have cared if that’s all I had done. You would have forgiven me. God.” The horrible comedy of it all caught up with him, and giggles scratched to the surface through his tears. “You really would have forgiven me everything in the world except for them. I could have done anything. I could have killed your uncle years ago and it would have been fine. Maybe I should have done that. You could have married Guinevere and let her rule as she always has in your name. That would have been nice, I think.” 

The tears had dried up, and he took a deep, shaky breath. The faint light of the chapel was suddenly too much, so he closed his eyes against it and let his head slump down until only an inch of air prevented him from resting his temple on the stone. “Don’t go to Paradise without me,” he whispered, and where the words came from he didn’t know. He had never had the selfishness to think them, but here they were. “Just stay where you are. I’ll be there soon. I promise.” 

He left then. The brittle light did not beg him to stay. The carved face of the King of the Orkneys and Lothian stayed serene and wrong. There was no comforting birdsong. As he left, he felt ghostly eyes on his back, but whatever owned them was not and never had been Gawain. 


	13. now you're telling me you're not nostalgic?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had slid into the skin of a solitary Satan as though he had never enjoyed the flourish of language, the delights of civil power. It was war, now. Naked and bloody.  
> —Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake

The smell of smoke is inescapable, no matter which way Helijn turns. It seeps through the air, twining down corridors and oozing between the threads of fabric he clutches against his face. He’s always had episodes where his lungs seem to constrict, intent on drowning him, but before they ended at most a day after they began. Now— it’s been weeks since he’s breathed properly. It’s the fires, of course. 

“What do you see, Sir Helijn?” says Gawain.

_ (Sir  _ Gawain, truly, practically  _ King  _ Gawain, with the graceful gold circlet that crowns his hair.)

Helijn flinches. The balcony seemed sheltered, a secluded corner of the fortress they are currently occupying. A place to gulp down air and try to breathe properly. But here is his liege-lord. 

He squints out at the dawn-stained fields rolling out before them, smeared with large charcoal smudges and the smoldering ashes of where crops had been. It’s a horrible sight. The inhabitants of the towns they passed through fled east, to the lands untouched by Sir Gawain’s descent towards Benoit. That’s not how war is supposed to work. It’s only supposed to be knights fighting and dying, not field-workers displaced and homeless. Not fields on fire. 

A light brush on his shoulder startles him, makes him think for a moment that the architect of this destruction has reached out a hand to touch him, but then another brush caresses his hair and he realises it’s begun to rain. When he turns his head Gawain is a pace behind him, his head cocked, watching him intently. His hands are clasped behind his back. Helijn tries to muster up an answer. “A hard winter.”

Gawain hums, lets a thoughtful look trail across his face. He hasn’t smiled once since this miserable fiasco began, and although with one very exciting exception Helijn was never close to him, the shift in personality is evident even to him. “True enough. I wish I could say I put thought into this. I didn’t.”

“Oh,” says Helijn, and feels terribly stupid doing so, because it’s obvious Gawain is looking for something from him, and that something is probably not “oh.”

“Oh?” Now Gawain moves forward, comes to stand beside Helijn at the balustrade and casts a blasé eye over the wreckage below them. Then his gaze drifts down to a limp heap lying perhaps twenty yards from the base of the fort. 

Helijn squints at it, noticing it for the first time, and then as realisation overtakes him he yanks his eyes away from the corpse, trying not to think about who it might have been. But morbid curiosity compels him to ask. “Do you— who that was?”

For a moment there’s silence as Gawain tilts his head slightly and peers down. Then he lets out a huff of breathy laughter. “Sir Morilegant, I believe. I told the medics to leave anyone dead and take only the living back inside. We’ll be moving on shortly. There’s no point in sentimentality.”

“Sentimentality,” repeats Helijn, “yes. What are you— why are you—?”

“Talking to you?” Gawain doesn’t smile, just raises an eyebrow slightly. “Chalk it up to illegal sentimentality. Why are you talking to me?”

“You’re my liege-lord.”

“Only in a practical sort of way,” allows Gawain modestly, as though the words have a shred of meaning. It’s easy to see he’s dissembling around  _ something _ , but what on earth that thing is Helijn has no idea. “Well, you’re here, aren’t you? I emerge onto a secluded balcony in the hopes of a little peace and quiet and instead I find Sir Helijn. I don’t believe I’ve talked to you in at least five years, but nonetheless you’re here, a sea away from home, burning fields with me. Why’s that?”

“I owe you allegiance,” says Helijn, feeling transfixed in a way he never did a decade and a half ago when he first met Gawain. It was quite the encounter, and left Helijn wanting to be as much like him as possible— rather to the irritation of his general family, who thought he was becoming very annoying. But he only felt excited at the time, with a dash of hero-worship thrown in. Now he feels frozen and unsettled. “I had to come.” 

A grin splits Gawain’s face in half. It is not like the grins Helijn is accustomed to seeing on his face from afar. It looks artificial and cold. “No, you didn’t. You came because you thought it would be a fine adventure with Sir Gawain. Maybe you’d find out he even remembered your name. I do, Helijn.” He casts a hand out towards the smoking landscape. “Are you having fun? Is it a good final quest before your retirement?” When Helijn doesn’t respond immediately, choked up as he is by the poor air and a sudden deep-reaching fear, Gawain takes a step forward and leans in. “Come on,” he says, “you can tell the truth. Don’t lie to me, Helijn. What do you think of what I’ve done?”

Helijn bites his lip, tries vainly to find something to say that will sound like the truth but isn’t, searches Gawain’s face for something, anything, that will— and then he realises. The truth is what Gawain is looking for. He doesn’t know why, but whatever self-flagellating impulse is driving Gawain to look out at the view he created is the same one that is pushing him to interrogate Helijn. “It’s horrible,” he breathes. A flicker of satisfaction darts across Gawain’s mouth. “I’ve seen war. I haven’t seen this.”

“Good. I’m glad. I’m glad it’s terrible, Helijn; if it’s terrible for you then I’m sure it’s terrible for the enemy.”

So Gawain wants to hurt. That’s what this is, that’s why he’s being so personal with Helijn, who in the end is not even an important one of his vassals. And because he’s so dreadfully far away from home, unable to breathe properly, and Gawain is only giving him the time of day to get something out of him, Helijn will oblige. “I wish I never answered your letter. I wish I never slept with you. I certainly wish I never tried as hard as I did to be you.”

“You tried to be me?” That seems to catch him off guard, amuse him slightly. He turns away from Helijn and shoots a glance up at the smoke-dawn sky. “I’m sure you didn’t expect to find yourself here.”

“No. I thought you were the greatest knight in the world.” 

They stare out from the balcony together in silence. 

“I will be,” says Gawain, after a long enough pause that it takes Helijn a moment to remember what he is responding to. “When this is done.” Then he steps away from the balustrade and pats Helijn on the shoulder. His hand is icy even through the fabric of Helijn’s shirt. Cold like a death thing. “Enjoy the view, Sir Helijn. I certainly do.”


	14. how many deaths will it take 'til he knows that too many people have died?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wasnt gonna post this but lou said it would be fine so i did

“Sometimes,” said Gawain one night, so late that it was morning, “I do wish I wasn’t quite such a killer.”

Lancelot hummed blearily, half-asleep. Then he blinked open his eyes. “What?”

For a long moment Gawain was quiet, listening to the faint hum of the crickets outside and the occasional hoot of an owl. “I’ve killed a lot of people,” he remarked, as though Lancelot didn’t know. His mouth was pressed up against Lancelot’s neck, his speech muffled. 

Lancelot thought about this. “So?”

“It doesn’t—” Gawain sighed faintly, his eyes fluttering closed and open again. “It doesn’t bother you? At all?”

“Lots of things bother me,” murmured Lancelot. “You don’t get bothered by much.”

In the pale starlight filtering through the window, the visible side of Gawain’s face was drawn and troubled. “Well, this bothers me.”

Because that was a rare statement, and the things Lancelot did not understand were the things which troubled him most, he dragged himself solidly into the realm of consciousness. Dislodging Gawain, he propped himself onto his elbows and squinted through the half-dark, and said curiously, “How many people  _ have  _ you killed? Roundabouts?”

“Christ.” He scrunched his face as though he could hide in an expression. “I don’t know. We could do the arithmetic, I suppose. It wouldn’t be a good number. I kept count when I was younger and gave up around a hundred. I think I was… eighteen or nineteen. No. Eighteen. Because it was before Bertilak and Pearl.”

This was how Gawain’s childhood had always been told to Lancelot: in rushed snippets, confessed at odd hours, in quiet times when the world stood still a little bit. It wasn’t a good story. Idly, Lancelot had always wondered how he would have turned out with the same beginnings. Either not well at all or far too well indeed. “Then that puts you well on your way to a thousand if you continued at the same pace,” he mused, gazing up at the rafters and not noticing the pained look which passed over Gawain’s face. “I think you have me beat.”

“I really don’t want to have you beat,” said Gawain quietly. When Lancelot turned to look at him he was gazing up with an expression of hollow guilt that looked very strange on his face. “I don’t… like killing, not really. I like fighting. Killing comes at the end most of the time. But I’m not like you.”

“Hm,” said Lancelot, to buy time, because something about being seen so deeply and loved anyway, to be trusted to receive this vulnerability, made him feel a bit giddy. Giddy was not the right response to this topic of conversation. “You told me once I was going to Hell, and when I worried about that you said you would come with me. I thought you didn’t let yourself feel bad about this sort of thing.”

“What do you know.” A leer crept across his face, glinting in the darkness. “It turns out I’m a liar.”

“Not to me,” said Lancelot, reaching a hand over the sheets and pulling him closer to soften the accusatory edge of the words. 

Gawain obliged, burying his face in Lancelot’s collarbone. “Didn’t mean to lie,” he hummed. “Most days I live with it. ‘Snot day right now so I’m not really alive. No sun. That’s logic.”

Piecing these scattered bits of thought together in his mind, Lancelot ran his fingers through the wild curls tucked under his chin. “I think I’ve noticed that, though. You don’t like pain. Why is that?”

“ _ I _ like pain plenty,” said Gawain, snorting a laugh, which showed he wasn’t too terribly out of sorts. “But only you would ask that question like it’s a surprise I don’t want other people to hurt.”

“I don’t want other people to hurt,” Lancelot said defensively, “I— I want people to be happy. You know that, right?”

He felt Gawain’s smile press into his skin. “I know that. Which is why it’s so funny that you enjoy doing things that make me leave the room. I like people to be afraid of me, but don’t want to actually do anything to them. I just do things anyway. But as quick and clean as possible.”

“Mostly.” To soften the word he gave Gawain’s shoulders a squeeze. “I don’t want to— I’m not trying to disagree with you. But even leaving aside— that is— occasional requirements for revenge—”

Gawain’s frame shook slightly in laughter. “You’ve never slaughtered whole castles, is what you’re saying.”

“Mm.”

They lay in silence pondering this together. Then Gawain said, “Do you think I would have made a good monk?”

“No,” said Lancelot with certitude.

“Alright, ah— merchant. I would have made a good merchant, and I wouldn’t have killed anyone about it.” He squirmed slightly and reached up a hand to trace idle patterns on Lancelot’s chest, light and ghost-like. “That’s what I’m trying to say. Wish I’d been a merchant far from here, selling gold and jewels and textiles in, in Constantinople— Baghdad— Hanguo.”

“Han fell two hundred years ago.” 

“What, really?”

“Mhm.” Proud at knowing a fact about history which Gawain did not, Lancelot continued, “Viviane said when my parents left the steppes there were three kingdoms at war where the Qin and the Han used to be. Sometimes they would trouble us.”

“Well, that’s no good, then,” groused Gawain, tossing his head. “I’ll stick with Constantinople. I can sell books or something.”

The first traces of dawn were beginning to trickle through the window, giving the whole room a faint glow. It felt as though no one was alive in the whole world except them. “And me?”

“Oh, you…” They both knew that Lancelot was exactly where he was supposed to be and Constantinople would not change him. “Well, I’ll keep quiet about you. The customers don’t need to know about your hobbies.”

Lancelot breathed in, listening to the faint whistling of the early morning breeze through the curtains. By all standards he was a stressed and dismal man, on average, but right now was a small moment of quiet, unobtrusive happiness. He twined a finger around one of Gawain’s curls. “Can I kiss you?”

“Always,” said Gawain seriously, and pushed himself up so he was no longer lying with his mouth pressed against Lancelot’s chest and was instead pressing it to Lancelot’s mouth, half-chaste and slow. How long they lay like that neither could say, but eventually the sun rose, and day chased reflection away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "they're the gay villains every franchise deserves" ty lou


	15. the land of poet's pride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> first four fics i wrote for an open prompt thing on my blog.... if you want to request a ficlet drop me an ask on my [tumblr!](gawain-in-green.tumblr.com/ask)

It was not unusual for Yvain to wander off. He was, despite his insistence to the contrary, an important fixture of King Arthur’s court– if only as a tonic to its more outlandish characters. And, as their marriage matured into an even-keeled happiness that had plenty of room for separation– as long as it was properly communicated– Yvain and Laudine picked up strays. Only one ever stayed.

Her name was Isabel. Yvain had met her, as far as Laudine could piece together, in a rare stint of clarity during his three-year absence, and perhaps some kissing had been involved, but Laudine didn’t mind much because they had not been together at the time, and so it was all perfectly alright.

And now, years later, Yvain was at Camelot. The well-worn alleys of Laudine and Isabel’s relationship slid into place like gears in a clock. It was almost a running joke at this point.

“I’m cursed,” said Isabel, as the sun dawned for the first time in a while over an Yvain-less castle. She was flopped next to Laudine in bed, her curls bound up in a hood to prevent them from disentangling as she slept. “I have been cruelly abandoned in this strange land by–”

“You want a kiss? Laudine said, giving her a bleary grin as the first rays of sunlight trickled through the last dregs of sleep.

Isabel gave a long-suffering sigh. “You’re not supposed to interrupt.” Her eyes trailed down. “And you’re supposed to have a sword.”

“I can find one by tonight.”

“Thank you. Accuracy is very important.” She paused. “I will accept the kiss, though. To reverse my horrible curse.”

Pushing herself up in bed, Laudine leaned over and gave her a quick peck on the lips, almost faint enough to be chaste. “That’s your first one. I suppose you need three, being a horribly cursed maiden ready to be rescued by a dashing knight?”

“I’ll spend the other two throughout the day.” Despite this claim, she reached up a hand and pulled Laudine down towards her, pressing her lips just to the side of Laudine’s mouth. “Doesn’t count,” she whispered, after a long moment. “Three is the magic number.”

* * *

“Babies,” said Morgause, pacing the far end of the dining hall like a tiger on the prowl, “are not for kicking. Babies are for loving and for cherishing.”

Her four older sons regarded her with varying levels of attentiveness. Gawain, the eldest at sixteen, raised a hand from where he sat with his arms resting on the back of a chair.

“Yes?”

“You sold me to pirates when _I_ was a baby,” he said, as though it were an injustice that Mordred had not been piratized as well.

Gaheris, ever eager to obtain his older brother’s approval, nodded furiously. “And you sent our sister to a nunnery.”

“She was…” Morgause paused in her irritated pacing and waved a hand vaguely. “…musically very gifted.”

“She was two.”

“We are missing the point,” said Morgause, drawing in a long breath and clasping her hands behind her back. “Which one of you kicked Mordred? I know _someone_ kicked him because there is a nasty shoe-print on his nice white linen blouse.”

The brothers shifted uncomfortably. None of them responded. Their code of silence superseded everything, including motherly wrath.

“Gawain?” snapped Morgause.

“Yes, mother?”

“Was it Agravaine or Gaheris?”

“I haven’t the faintest clue, mother.”

Her mouth twitched. “Right. Well– if I find my precious treasure has been kicked again, I shall send someone else to a nunnery.” She took in her sons’ wide-eyed, aggressively blank expressions and belatedly course-corrected. “Ah, I mean, a monastery.” Morgause wasn’t the type of woman who said sorry, but her guilty expression indicated that she would let the Mordred issue slide if they all agreed not to comment on her gaff. “You can all– leave. I will see you at dinner.”

Alternately bemused and amused, they shuffled out of the room, reconvening in the hallway outside in a sullen Orkney clump.

“Well,” said Gawain, crossing his arms and shooting each of his brothers a glare in turn, “Gareth, you’re lucky you have an inherently innocent and lovable face, you little shit.”

* * *

“I don’t do this sort of thing anymore,” said Morgan primly, which was a bold statement considering she was by now up to her arms in blood. “I really don’t.”

To her credit, Sebile ignored this entirely, more absorbed in trying to will the keyhole open with her mind. She was, it had to be said, an accomplished magician in many respects; she also engaged in experimental sorcery which rarely panned out and frequently left her in unorthodox situations. Today she was wearing a dead snake over her shoulders, because a man at a stall in Caerwys had told her it would improve her empathetic abilities. So far it hadn’t, but as Morgan pointed out, Sebile was a naturally very empathetic person and perhaps there was no further she could go.

(Sebile preferred this explanation to the idea that she had been scammed.)

“Try a lockpick,” Morgan suggested.

Shooting her a dismayed look, Sebile rummaged in her satchel and produced a large hammer instead. “You’ve got something ready? I’m sure there are guards in there.”

“I’m very ready.” Morgan took a step back, clicked her fingers, and muttered something under her breath that Sebile couldn’t quite catch. Their acquaintance had stretched on for quite a few years, and yet there were still things that Morgan refused to teach her– not out of any professional jealousy or fear of being bested, but just because she thought it was funny to watch Sebile try to trick her out of her secrets.

Sebile readied her hammer. “One,” she counted, “two, three–” She swung. The doorknob flew off with a loud clattering noise, leaving her free to slide the bolt out. As soon as she did, the door flew open and two guards forced past her out into the hallway.

“Hi,” said Morgan mildly, and clapped her hands together.

Time stopped. For an instant a glittering light hung suspended in the air, casting stark shadows on the walls and tracing patterns on the skin of the two men standing below it. Then the clock reasserted itself with force and the light turned crimson as though blood was soaking into it. When it finally extinguished itself after a horribly long moment, the guards crumpled into each other, their skin mottled and dried.

“Shit,” said Sebile, “that was no fun. There was no screaming or anything.”

Inside the room, someone began to scream.

Morgan shrugged, dusting off her hands. Flakes of drying blood fell to the floor from their earlier activities. “It’s just us,” she called to the room’s occupant. “We’re– eh–”

“Rescuing you!” finished Sebile, a broad grin overtaking her face. Without a care for any further dangers she barged through the doorway. “Hey, Sangremore. Let this be a lesson to you. Fuck the husbands too, and then no one will be mad.”

Behind her, Morgan crossed her arms in the doorway. “This is,” she added, “a one-time dungeon rescue opportunity.”

* * *

The meeting was already heading south when Lancelot started crying.

It wasn’t an unusual occurrence, per se; Lancelot was a professional crier. He cried at pristine winter mornings and birds on the windowsill, at laughter and shame and everything in between, and currently he was crying for no reason at all. King Ris of Outre-Ombre paused in his list of military threats and swiveled an offended look across the table.

“Sorry,” said Lancelot, through inexplicable tears, and scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Oh, no.”

The assembled representatives glanced at each other in awkward confusion, which Lancelot pretended not to notice, concerned as he was with trying to funnel whichever emotions were happening back into the place where they had not been happening. Unfortunately he wasn’t having much success. After a horribly long moment he pushed his chair back, made some fumbled apologies to the handful of people present for his general existence, and bolted out of the war pavilion.

Outside, the morning continued. It was crisp and bright: streamers ran from tent to tent, gaudy reminders of the festival King Ris had disrupted with his appearance. His shoulders inexplicably shaking, Lancelot wandered between two pavilions. His thoughts circled like vultures. It went without saying he had irreparably damaged King Arthur’s chances in negotiations. Everyone hated him. It would be better if he went back to the woods. No one would even–

“Hey.” When he spun around, reaching to the hilt of his sword on instinct, Gawain raised his hands. “It’s just me. Guinevere’s making fun of Ris for making fun of you, so I snuck out. What’s going on?”

“I– hng.” Words were not working. Instead he gave a miserable shrug, trying to communicate despite the awful thrumming in his head and the way he couldn’t seem to catch his breath.

Gawain stared at him for a moment, concern lurking in his dark eyes. Then, very carefully, as if Lancelot were a skittish horse, he reached out a hand and touched his shoulder, guiding him away from the center of the festivities. “Come on,” he said, “let’s get out of here.”

How they found their way to the river Lancelot didn’t know. They walked in silence, Lancelot still trembling and putting one foot in front of the other as though walking through a thick fog. The pressure of Gawain’s hand on his shoulder and then drifting down to the small of his back kept him moving forward. But eventually the fugue cleared a little, he found himself blinking through eyes that had no more tears to give, and he was sitting on a bench by the river. “Don’t– sorry,” he managed, his voice hoarse. But words were happening slightly more than they had been earlier. “Don’t know why I– I really don’t know.”

“King Ris said some pretty horrible things about Guinevere,” Gawain offered, sliding his arm so it was linked with Lancelot’s. A sparrow hopped up the bank towards his foot, and the sun was still shining. “Could have been that. Could have been something else. Just stab him next time.”

A weak chuckle bubbled out of Lancelot’s lips. “You can’t give me carte blanche to stab someone every time I’m feeling stressed. You’ll be digging holes from now until the judgement day.”

“Fine by me,” said Gawain, and they watched the river run by.


	16. blessed are the one way ticket holders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A reincarnated Gawain visits Galahad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay i wrote this aaaages ago and then completely forgot about it. theres like.... a lot of lore to this au but the only relevant bit here is that in this reincarnation au, prior to remembering who he was, gawain killed erec in self-defense and was the subject of a high-profile trial that he obviously got off from. other than that i think u can kinda guess most of the context  
> also some of the characters are like tabloid celebrities and shit but only in the uk. no one else gives a fuck

“I think we should talk,” said Gawain, a length of time after the reunion of the Round Table that was far longer than it should have been. In fact, it was two years, but in his defense, things had been busy. He had a job. He had _multiple_ jobs, if you counted being professionally weird and hot on the internet. 

Galahad stared at him for a moment wordlessly, his eyebrows slightly lifted in what could have been shock or could have been incredulity, and then closed his apartment door in Gawain’s face. It was painted yellow, which was cute and perky, or at least would have been cute and perky if it hadn’t belonged to Galahad. Gawain rapped on it, not one to give up easily, unless ghosts or grails were involved. As evidenced by his current presence in a mortal frame, Galahad was neither anymore. “Oh, come on,” he yelled, pitching his voice for maximum reach to neighbours who might be listening in. “I’m your step dad!”

“You’re five years older than me this time!” Galahad hollered back from inside, his voice muffled by the layers of wood between them. At least he sounded like he was still standing by the door. That boded well. “And you’re not married. That would require setting foot in a church. And I’m not even related to Lancelot anymore.”

This was true. Lancelot Lamarre, né Kim, had been born in Arras and, upon an unfortunate mix-up at the hospital that was in fact a kidnapping, had been spirited away to a lake estate just outside of Marseilles and raised there because Viviane still didn’t have a great handle on not stealing children. Three years later Galahad Kim had been left on the doorstep of a lovely couple in Arras whom Viviane had belatedly realised might feel a little upset. Gawain thought this was immaterial and regarded Galahad as a sort of cousin, unless he wanted to be annoying, like now. He pursed his lips, leaned one arm on the door frame, and adjusted his voice to a lower tone. “I’ve always respected your kindness, you know. The way you follow your faith and extend people the benefit of the doubt.”

There was a pause. Then the door clicked open. “I hate you,” said Galahad blandly. “You’re a terrible person and a dreadful influence on my father. Come in.”

He did, casting a cursory glance around the apartment. It was sparse, practically barren, and minimalist in a way that spoke less to aesthetics and more to lack of material investment. The only nod to opulence was a massive white bookshelf that stretched along the wall opposite the couch, crammed from floor to ceiling with theology volumes. Gawain caught sight of both the King James and the Douay-Rheims bibles next to each other. A shelf down, there were three editions of the Quran, one in Arabic. 

Galahad sat down at a prim desk by the bay window and gestured crisply to the couch, not meeting Gawain’s gaze. “Sit, I suppose. Do you want coffee?”

“Yes, please. More sugar than you think it needs.”

“I don’t have any sugar.”

“Of-- of course,” said Gawain, more warmly than he intended to. It was so classically Galahad. He probably didn’t have any meat in the house, either, or eat white bread. “Just a lot of milk then.” He sat down, as confidently as he could.

“Mmm. It’s very steeped.”

“That’s fine.” It wasn’t. But he only drank coffee to feel emotions, anyway, even if they were emotions like ‘antsy’ and ‘yuck.’ As Galahad puttered over to the small kitchen visible through an archway, he asked, “What do you do for a living, anyway?” 

“I run a multi-level marketing scam.”

“ _What?_ ”

“I’m a retail clerk.” Galahad paused and there was a beeping as he pressed buttons on the microwave. “That one’s the true one. At Harrods. I hate it.”

“Aren’t you like twelve?”

“I’m eighteen,” said Galahad patiently, reappearing with coffee. “You’re twenty-three and still take sugar in your coffee. What do you want?” Gawain leaned back on the couch and gave a lazy grin. “Sugar in my coffee,” he said. “Or, barring that, to talk with you about-- well-- I think we should debrief.”

“About?”

“Ah-- I mean, I think you hate me.” He took a sip of coffee and tried not to grimace. “Microwaved? God. You really are a teenager.”

Carefully, Galahad sat down in his chair and folded his hands. “I don’t hate you,” he said after a moment.

“Mm? Well, that’s news. You called me a sinner.”

“And nowadays I would just call you a bad person.”

“Well--” Gawain raised a finger. “You got me there.” Then he remembered Galahad probably didn’t even have a computer, and added lamely, “I mean, hey.”

On the floor above them, someone scraped a chair noisily, and Galahad glanced up. “My neighbours are going to ask me what happened after you leave. They look out for me.”

“That’s good.” He took another sip of coffee. “You deserve someone looking out for you.”

“Mmm. So how is my father?”

“Ah-- good,” said Gawain, feeling as though he were walking into some kind of trap but not entirely certain what it was. It was an uncomfortable feeling. Generally he was the one playing word games. “He’s an artist. Takes commissions. Good money.”

“For art commissions?” Galahad said suspiciously.

Lancelot was an artist. Lancelot took commissions. They were not always related. He wasn’t, in the strictest sense, a criminal, because the things he killed were not technically classified as human-- recently there had been a giant boar sprung from some shadowy otherworld. That had been fun. Gawain had followed him around on the hunt and been unhelpful. Not certain Galahad would approve of this, he said, “Oh, he’s doing well, you know. We’re doing well. You’re doing well?”

“No,” said Galahad.

“Ah. That’s unfortunate.” He squirmed a bit. Something about Galahad’s steely gaze made him feel horrifyingly, excruciatingly _seen_. “Anything I can do to help? I-- I know you don’t like me, even if you don’t hate me, or trust me. But I really want the best for you.”

“I think you want the best for Lancelot,” said Galahad quietly, “and consider me to be part of the package.”

This stung a bit, and Gawain blinked, reeling. “What? That’s not true. I was always a little worried about you, honestly.”

“That’s very nice of you,” said Galahad plainly, readjusting his immaculate sweater. “Let me help you understand how I think about our relationship. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt when I said that. As it seems to me, there are two options.” His voice was quiet, half-mechanical, but something resentful lurked under the surface. “Either I’m right, and you followed me around on the Grail Quest because you knew if I got hurt it would hurt Lancelot in turn-- not that it worked. You got shaken off the trail pretty soon. _Or..._ you were just being nice.”

“I was,” said Gawain, an uncomfortable weight lurking on his chest.

“Nice,” Galahad continued, not acknowledging this, “like you were so very nice and helpful to every young knight who showed up at court with barely a name and a father they didn’t know. Because it all served them well in the end. Right.”

The words settled over Gawain with an icy chill. There were, he wanted to protest, a limited number of people in the world whom he could truly care about. It was simply mathematics. You had to make sacrifices. But he suspected this line of logic would not serve him well with a teenager who had a bookshelf stocked with religious texts out of a genuine desire to be as good a person as he could. “I _do_ care about you,” he said, although it sounded lame even to his own ears. “Someone had to.”

“That’s--” Galahad paused, and then his eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “You mean that?”

“ _Yes._ I came here to talk to you.” Gawain paused and gave a half-laugh. “Okay, it was a while. But I did. I just-- wanted to check in on you.”

“Oh.” In the space between Galahad’s words, Gawain took an awkward sip of coffee. Conversation was horrifyingly difficult when you were genuine. “That’s sweet.” Gawain breathed out a sigh of relief, feeling as though he had passed some sort of a test, even if a minor one. “So you’re a retail clerk at Harrods?” 

“Yes. It’s dreadful.”

“I could find you a job.” This was probably true, although in a previous life Galahad’s main job qualification was _asexual_ , and they didn’t pay you for that anymore. Still, he could figure something out.

“I don’t trust any employment opportunity you provide,” said Galahad, sniffing, but there was a note of humour in his eyes. “I’m fine. Don’t worry. Are you fine?”

“What?”

“I thought you might be able to get away from the violence, this time. I don’t think your-- um--”

“The murder I did,” said Gawain helpfully.

“--yes-- I don’t think it was a foregone conclusion. I’m sorry it happened.”

In a rush Gawain remembered why some people had disliked Galahad very much indeed. It was not just that he had shown them up at every turn. He had a bizarrely mature way of taking people apart, and it sometimes felt when talking to him as though he was the older one, and you had done something very bad. This was what Lancelot, in his whimsical recollections of the Grail Quest, referred to as the messianic factor. It was probably not supernatural. Probably. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about me. Honestly. I mean, I still remember everything from the first time around, so it’s not as though I would have been a complete innocent. Coffee?”

Politely, Galahad declined. “But you didn’t remember when you did it,” he said quietly. “You were a normal person.”

“I was an influencer,” said Gawain doubtfully. “I think that’s the worse crime.”

“Okay. You don’t have to talk about it. Thank you for coming. You should come back three weeks from now on Saturday at 9:30. Does that sound good?”

“A Saturday morning--?” At the look Galahad shot him, he course-corrected, and tried to sound less whiny. “--would be lovely. Thank you. Ah-- I’ll be going now. Thank you for the, uh, coffee.”

“I’ll buy sugar for next time,” said Galahad, and shot him a rare smile, perhaps the first of its kind Gawain had seen. 

“Aw, I’m charmed. Do you chase all your guests out this quickly, by the way?” “No,” said Galahad, “I don’t have guests, really. Have a good day, Gawain. Tell my father I said hello. And ask him-- ask him if he’d like to go sailing some time.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise i'll update dead in the abbey soon im so sorry school is a nightmare and my life is hashtag a mess


	17. why don't you have wings to fly with, like the swallow so proud and free?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt on tumblr: "Gawain gets cursed so everyone he murders immediately respawns at Camelot believing Kay is a Really Great Guy"

It started with Lamorak. He had never been the most Kay-friendly of knights; he was also dead, but now both of these situations seemed irrevocably altered. He looked just the same as before, which was to say sort of attractive if you squinted and were someone with terrible taste, like Agravaine. If you were Agravaine you also noticed the deepening scowl on his face whenever Gawain walked by-- a frown that turned to bland trust as soon as Kay was in sight.

That was the oddest thing. It was not simply that various knights who  _ surely  _ had been brutally murdered were suddenly back from the dead with a vengeance, it was that they all seemed utterly convinced that not only was Kay less of an evil than Gawain was, he was in fact the paragon of all virtues. Lamorak followed him around like a helpless piglet. Dinadan had taken to writing entirely unironic songs extolling his activities. Escanor was wandering around the halls of Camelot proclaiming his undying faith in Kay’s tax policies.

“Tax policies?” someone asked him eventually, when the buzz of newly resuscitated knights had faded into annoyance over being lectured at.

Escanor nodded fervently. He had been an aggressive and irritating man prior to his timely demise. Now he had the fervent air of a recent convert to feminism and Gaussian spreads. “You see,” he said, “it’s very important to set up a flow of income from Camelot’s territories to the capital, wherein ideally we allot the appropriate funds to various committees which will oversee democratic action as appointed by officials elected by the wider populace, to the end that the funding received from the every day citizen of Camelot is rerouted back to his, her, their, xir, etc., own benefit. It’s the principle of delegation supported by a Montesqieu-style division of powers.” He paused and surveyed his audience. “I mean, Sir Kay has got the tax part down, right. He’s got that figured out. We still live in an autocratic divine right monarchy without even a stable transfer of power due to the fact that we as a sub-Roman civilization have yet to develop primogeniture, but you know. Baby steps. Kay’s the man for the job.”

The various knights in front of him blinked. “Uh, right,” said Meriadeuc eventually. “I’m all for hating Sir Gawain, but I don’t know what you’re on about. Death does funny things to a person.”

“If you read Foucault--” Escanor started, but they had left him.

After that, Agravaine avoided most of the ex-dead. They hadn’t liked him in life anyway. He pointed this out to Gawain, who said, “No one likes you in life, Aggs,” and then stole the grapes from his plate.

Well, that was no matter. “They hate you too.”

“Hm?”

“They all want you dead.”

Gawain frowned. “Well, they don’t seem to remember the-- the specific circumstances of their deaths, and they all hated my guts before dying anyway, so I’m not particularly worried.”

“Uh-huh.” Agravaine slammed a fistful of pamphlets down on the table in front of him. In the low light of Gawain’s rooms, they glinted with the unholy light of high-gloss advertising paper. “Read these. They’re talking about how it’s unethical for you to hold onto all of Norway without re-allocating your wealth to the populace. Apparently  _ Kay  _ doesn’t own land. Dinadan’s been saying that means he understands the inherent evil of a neo-mercantilist attitude.”

“A what?” whimpered Gawain. His hands were clutched in front of his chest like a terrified T-Rex.

“When they died,” said Agravaine patiently, “I believe they were visited by God. It is my understanding he looks a bit like Kay. After that I don’t know what happened, but they sure learned a lot of big words. Anyway, I’ve been talking to Lamorak.”

Gawain gave him a suspicious glare. “Why the fuck would you do that?”

“Ah-- he--” What Agravaine tried to say was  _ I’m spying on the enemy.  _ What came out was: “He’s got nice hair.”

“Yuck. Gaheris would kill you for that.”

He would. Agravaine blushed furiously. “That’s not the point. The point is-- I think you need to publicly salvage your relationship with Kay or they’re going to build a very Gawain-specific guillotine.”

“Oh, people have already tried that,” said Gawain, leaning back in his chair and knitting his hands behind his head. “I outwitted them.”

Agravaine stared. "These people,” he enunciated, very slowly so that even Gawain could understand, “these Kay fans, they do not want to sleep with you.”

That got Gawain to freeze, his face drawn and horrified. “Jesus,” he said, “oh, god. You didn’t tell me matters were  _ desperate _ . I’ll do whatever they say.”

(When the Grail Quest rolled around, no one went on it. The Grail heroes had unionized, and held exclusive work rights as defended by Kay. And after all, no one crossed Kay.  _ No one. _ )


	18. don't think twice, it's alright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so. long backstory on this. this was the only salvageable scene of the first arthurian thing i tried to write, which was a novella where ragnelle married malory's gawain and got involved in court intrigue and stuff. it was, like, bad, and i tried to rewrite it recently but i think the problems run too deep. one of the biggest was that by definition, ragnelle could not substantially affect the plot, because if she did then like. the morte wouldn't happen. and that was an insurmountably sexist obstacle so its a good thing i tossed the whole thing. 
> 
> HOWEVER i am proud of this scene. up until this point ragnelle is on good terms with both lancelot and gawain, but isnt like... super close with either of them. only context i really want you to know is that in this story, lancelot/gawain is NOT a thing, theyre just best friends. i wouldnt do that to ragnelle. also it would be homophobic since theyre both legit villains a;oweifjafweo;ji

She had barely pulled the chest closed above her when she heard the door swing open and boots tromp in. Someone—Lancelot—sighed. Ragnelle shrunk into herself and tried not to breathe.

“Do you want to come in for a drink?” came Lancelot’s voice.

In the darkness of the chest, Ragnelle stiffened involuntarily. No, she thought, her heart quickening, please, anyone but—

“Don’t mind if I do,” said Gawain. “Do you have any blackberry?”

“I always do.” There was the sound of more armour clanking, and then of a bottle being poured. The door thudded to a close. “Just put the armour anywhere, honestly. None of the furniture is very nice.”

“Didn’t Arthur give you this table?”

“Exactly.”

Gawain laughed, and various pieces of armour thudded onto the floor. “You fought poorly today. Something on your mind?”

“Let’s start the wine first.”

“Oh, it’s that kind of talk, is it?” Ragnelle could hear the leer in his voice. “What did I do this time? Is Gildas to polemize at me from the bottom of a bottle?”

“Gildas could never,” Lancelot said fondly. “You’re overthinking the matter.”

“I never over—”

There was a small scuffle. “Shut your mouth and drink your wine,” came Lancelot’s voice eventually.

“How am I supposed to shut my mouth and drink at the same time?”

“I keep the blackberry just for you,” said Lancelot in a mournful tone. “I can’t stand the stuff, it’s far too sweet.”

There was silence for a moment as, presumably, Gawain shut up and did as he was told. It was as if, thought Ragnelle, the thin wood of the chest separated her from a man she did not know. Here, with Lancelot, there was none of the carefully controlled charm and passive amiability that he brought to their cohabitation. Her legs were already beginning to cramp, and she closed her eyes in the dark.

The next words were so quiet that she almost missed them. It was Lancelot, his voice barely above a murmur, even and curious. “Did you kill Lamorak?”

Ragnelle felt as though she had stepped off a cliff. The world stood still, and her breath curdled in her lungs.

“Why?” said Gawain. He sounded entirely unconcerned.

“He’s been gone an unusually long time. Even Tristan doesn’t know where he went. I think he’s dead.” A cup thudded onto the table. “Did you kill him?”

There’s no way, Ragnelle thought desperately, her eyes straining in the dark.

Gawain laughed softly. “Yes. Last Monday. I’m surprised no one has found his body yet.”

There was a hum. “How’d you do it?”

“Oh, it was an ambush with my brothers. I couldn’t take him, you know that.”

“No,” said Lancelot, “I meant how did he die.”

More wine burbled into a glass. Ragnelle thought she might throw up. “I carved him open,” he said, “like a pig. Thought it was fitting.”

“He was a good knight,” said Lancelot mildly.

“But I’m better.”

“You are. You always are.”

She remembered suddenly that horrible moment in the hallway when she had seen, for an instant, what Lancelot truly was. How had she forgotten? But there was nothing to be done, so she trembled in the dark and tried to be somewhere else.

Outside the chest, despite her best efforts not to listen, the conversation continued.

“And do you feel better now?” asked Lancelot.

“You know,” Gawain said, without answering, “he didn’t scream a lot. Even when I flayed him all he did was glare. Do you have anything to eat, by the way?”

“There’s a breadbox in the cabinet. Help yourself.”

A chair scraped against stone, and then Gawain’s footsteps made their way across the room before stopping what must have been three feet from Ragnelle’s hiding place. There was some rummaging in the cabinet next to her, and then he gave an indignant squawk. “This is rock hard! Did Gabriel give this to you after the Annunciation?”

“No, it’s only been in there since—well—since August at the earliest.”

“Oh, at the earliest?”

“Bread is edible until it goes moldy,” said Lancelot defensively. “I didn’t notice the difference.”

“You deduced that I murdered Lamorak, but not that your bread needs an epitaph?”

Lancelot laughed. “Don’t be mean to my bread. If you’re mean to my bread, I’ll write your epitaph.”

“I can write my own epitaph, thanks so much.” The cabinet door swung closed, and Gawain’s footsteps distanced themselves again.

“Oh? What would it say?”

The chair screeched back into place. “Gawain of Orkney,” he proclaimed, “not dead, just rotten.”

Ragnelle couldn't help it. She flinched involuntarily and her hand dragged down, making a screeching noise on the polished wood. Her heart pounded so hard stars swam in front of her vision. Had they heard? How loud had that been? Perhaps—

“I’ll check the window.” The seconds ticked by. “There’s no one out there. Which means…”

“Is there anyone here?” called Lancelot. His chair was pushed back.

“Anyone hiding where they shouldn’t be?” Gawain said in a sing-song tone.

Two sets of footsteps padded slowly around the room. There were other places to check before the chest, Ragnelle thought furiously. There were the cabinets, and the bed, and—

“You’d better come out if you’re here,” said Lancelot.

“If we find you,” Gawain followed up, “we’ll stick you like a rat.”

After what felt like an interminably long silence, one of them sighed. “Must have been the wood creaking,” said Lancelot. Ragnelle breathed out, her heart racing so fast she thought it would burst.

“I should be getting back anyway,” she heard Gawain say over the rushing in her ears. “I feel bad leaving Ragnelle after a tournament, she’s always worried about me.”

“You got lucky with her,” observed Lancelot. “She’s a good woman.”

“She is. I love her.”

“You should tell her that,” said Lancelot.

“Oh, you’re giving me love advice?” He laughed. “What is the world coming to?”

There was a moment of silence. Then Lancelot spoke fondly, “Go home, Gawain. You’re in a mood.”

“A mood, he says.” She could hear the clank of armour being collected. “I’m always in a mood. Haven’t you learned that by now?”

“I may be the only one who has. Good night, Gawain.”

The door creaked open. “Good night, Sir Lancelot.”

Thud, then silence. The sound of Lancelot pacing slowly. Something shifting above.

Almost before she knew to be afraid, the lid of the chest opened a crack. “Hello, Ragnelle,” said Lancelot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway yeah this is the surprise twist villains scene :3  
> also upon rereading this is in fact really homophobic queercoded villainry. uhm. i didnt ship remarkable at the time and i queercoded them to make lou and val happy. in retrospect this was the worst of both worlds. sexist AND homophobic entirely through my own stupidity and incompetence as a writer. i think its so funny and i prommy ive learned and wont do it again


End file.
